beckyh2112 | Meme ganked from Rin

E

9 and 5

"If my fate is to die, I must simply laugh."

Previously on Avatar (http://beckyh2112.livejournal.com/445052.html#cutid2)...

"Hakoda!"

The dullahan reined in his black steed. The horse pawed at the sands of the beach, and the dark man lightly tapped his curled whip against its flank. It settled, and he rubbed its neck.

The merrows by the bonfire on the beach stirred, then one of them stepped forward. He doffed his red cap and grinned with shark's teeth. "What brings one of the Unseelie queen's messengers out to us?"

Piandao studied the merrow-man. Skin roughened by sun and sea, blue eyes like the choppy waves, a scruffy beard, clothes scrounged from the drowned dead, blue beads in his hair.

"Queen Ursa has no claim on the dullahan in her exile," Piandao said, voice deceptively mild. "But the selkie prince and his sister have run afoul of Ursa's changeling-boy and Ozai's son." A pause as he rubbed his thumb against the vertebrae of his whip. "It has been said the selkies and the merrows have some alliance. So I brought word before Ozai discovers them."

The merrow had paled, and Piandao jerked on his horse's reins. He urged it into a walk before the merrow could find his voice.

***

Hakoda cinched the swordbelt he hadn't worn in years. Hard blue leather covered his body, shimmering with sodden white polar bear fur and dark penguin down. He checked the sheaths of his bone blades, then went to find the sword he had won so long ago from the stromkarl.

"Hakoda," Bato said quietly, armored and armed himself. "The dullahan called you by name. Are you certain you want to risk this...?"

"Ozai can't have my children," Hakoda snarled. "The dullahan said I'll die soon, but he didn't say how, and I've never heard of anyone avoiding a portended fate."

Bato nodded, then reached out to squeeze his shoulder. "I'll be by your side."

"When the time comes," Hakoda said, "I go alone, Bato. Don't do anything foolish."

A wintry smile appeared on his oldest friend's mouth. "As you wish."

Edited 2010-06-27 04:43 (UTC)

D: I am sorry I have not replied before now!

I have no idea why this wasn't in my email.

I very much love this AU, and the mingled fae-politics going on throughout.

There's just so much going on in just this short snippet but Hakoda's love for his children is clear through this. <3 Thank you.

B, 2 and 8.

you said you'd never love me, but the night isn't over yet.

Song slid aside the paper screen to peek out her window. There, outside her gate, the furyless Fire man sat, a cloak pulled tight around him. Through her water fury, she felt his bone-deep weariness and frustration, felt even the tiny ball of fear he so carefully buried.

Worst of all, she felt the gaping chasms of broken fury-bonds.

A soft shudder ran through her as she slid the screen back. She'd never felt a broken bond in a human before. Always, it had been in a feral fury, and only water furies. Shui couldn't seem to flow with the emotions of other types of furies.

This man from the Fire Nation, though, was broken like the Jiao River fury.

All the world knew of what Avatar Aang had done to the Firelord. It made her sick just thinking about it, and the assault of his pain made it even worse.

It made her even more sick to think of what he would have done if Avatar Aang hadn't stopped him.

A shiver ran through her as the winter-cold finally seeped through her layers of clothing. She went back to the hearth, curling up next to the heat. It would be a long night with that man outside her gate. Min could keep him off her land, but the earth fury couldn't drive him off without leaving Song unprotected from the feral and wild furies of the land.

The war had killed many people and torn up the wild furies' territories. Feral furies, half-mad with grief, attacked people their wild cousins would have avoided, and wild furies were increasingly territorial. It was dangerous to be out alone, and she always manifested Min when she worked on her farm. Especially weeks like this, when she was alone while Mother traveled to dicker with her family over a marriage-match for Song.

She pulled a quilt around her shoulders. He was just outside her gates. There weren't any wild furies who claimed that, of course. But sometimes the stone horse would run up and down the road, striking anyone with its hooves. Or the tornado might blow in tonight.

It had never occurred to her that a man like him could be afraid of anything.

Song screwed her eyes shut and pulled Shui in close as could be. She did not want to feel that man out there alone in the dark. She didn't.

He was horrible, he had caused so much pain and suffering in the world. Her leg, Lee's scar, the feral furies, everything.

She shouldn't be crying for him.

It was cold and dark, and he was alone and afraid.

Sniffling, Song stood up and shuffled towards the door. She slid it open, calling on the fire-furies in the gate-lamps to ignite. "You should come inside. It's safer in here."

*purrpurr* Well, it's just me, but I always love Songzai. I love how she's struggling not to care which is going against her very nature. I love all those dark thoughts that dance in his head and that soft pain that's running through her.

D: Sonnnnng. Song I love you. Guh.

BEX, STOP MAKING ME WANT TO READ THESE BOOKS.

THEY WILL NEVER BE THIS AWESOME ANYWAY.

Oh, the books are pretty damn awesome, let me tell you. Jim Butcher does not pull his punches, and omg, there is so much I want to babble about but I also want you to go in fresh. *flails!*

STOP THAT.

STOP THAT RIGHT NOW.

The books have cannibalistic elves and wolf-men as well as elemental-powered Romans!

LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU

And if you like watching people do heel-face turns and face-heel turns, this is DEFINITELY a series for you.

*wibbles*

Ozai is just so broken and Song is feeling the broken bonds and it is all so sad-making and tearing apart. D:

And then she calls him inside and it is sad smiles. D:D

I am so glad other people saw this first, I was thinking "but where IS the list" but now I understand.

Um.

C

11, 4

closing the eye of the storm

:D (hi. I stalk. >_> )

your icon

so cute

asdfghjkl;

*explodes*

*beaming with delight!* Thank you!

Previously on Avatar (http://beckyh2112.livejournal.com/445052.html#cutid1)...

S0KK4 rewrote himself out of capture-programs, stole a program-shell and wore it as a Trojan, hurled all of his processing power and cracker sub-programs at the .

But it wouldn't open even a crack for him to slip out of Firenet's systems.

The connected-human inside the firewall applied a simulcrum program to him, and he was dragged down into human form.

The human was female. She looked like Lee, only younger, intense and sparking with data-shards and algorithm-lattices. Her smiled as she looked at him, and S0KK4 scrambled for his DDoS attacks.

She laughed as he discovered the simulacrum limited him to human abilities.

"What are you?" He demanded, hating the virtual sound of his voice twisted with Corps-accent.

"The queen of Firenet," she purred, "and you will be my slave."

He closed facade-eyes and took a false breath. He was limited to humanity. Well, he knew how to be human better than some. Better than K4T4R4, better than H4K0D4, better than that one.

He knew that human didn't mean jack in cyberspace.

Besides, humans could send messages.

It was quicker than thought, hardly more than a line of gibberish thrown into the outgoing message hopper. The queen didn't even notice it, then it was gone.

Ice crept into the simulacrum. Virtuality cracked under it, melting away, and the queen shrieked in outrage.

Firenet trembled. The wavered.

S0KK4 fled.

That one, which had never worn human in its existence, waited outside, throwing the kind of programming power S0KK4 and K4T4R4 could only dream of at the FireCorps systems. Some teetered and crashed, others lagged into immobility.

S0KK4 swirled himself through the other's code, packing himself in tight where it was safe. Then that one drew back its attack and went away, far away from where humans ever dared go.

Edited 2010-06-27 18:52 (UTC)

This verse leaves me breathless and so bloody excited everytime I get to read from it. I just cannot seem to get enough of it, every drop of it creates so many questions to me and I am grinning like a loon.

Oh wow, that happened to Azula? I was really wondering about it. Meep.

I love how you write Pakku in this. I love how alien and inhuman he is, and I love how you chose not to give him a name.

More of this please! This cyberpunk/matrix/ghost-in-the-machine stuff is freaking awesome!

You saw the index for the rest of them, right?

Yes, indeed. They were all pretty damn cool.

I love what you did with my prompt!

B, 5 & 17.

Crash, crash, burn let it all burn
This hurricane's chasing us all underground

Mai sips her tea. The pale green ceramic of the mug is cool in her hands. Like the rest of this room of wood, it does not sing against her senses. The only singing comes from her weapons and the swordsmaster's.

Master Piandao also sips his tea. His eyes are cool and grey, the color of forged metal. She has eyes like his, she knows, though hers are the pale electrum color of steel mixed with fire. Her fire fury is weak, though, barely more than embers.

It is curled tight inside her chest right now, terrified of the vast fire fury lurking outside. Terrified of Master Jeong Jeong.

The tea tastes smooth on her tongue, brewed with a naturalness more becoming a woodcrafter than a metalcrafter. She wonders how Master Piandao learned it, for even Prince-General Iroh's teas did not quite taste so perfect.

She knows however he learned it, he practiced and practiced until it was instinct. Just as she had with her calligraphy. Just as they both had with their weapons. Practice and practice until metal sang in her senses, in her very dreams.

The fittings of Master Piandao's house are made of wood or lacquered bamboo, she has noticed. He served her on fine ceramic plates with beautifully carved wooden chopsticks. His desk is decorated with paper and stone. The wall-scrolls are held up by wooden pegs.

It is peaceful, this silence of metal. Even with Master Jeong Jeong terrifying her fire fury.

Wistfully, she dreams of never leaving.

Edited 2010-07-15 04:05 (UTC)

F

6 and 17

Moonlight shadows

How does the song go? It's a long, long way to Ba Sing Se, something, something, something, Take me down to the walled city/Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty.

Bumi hums loudly, shifting his weight to gently swing the metal coffin the Fire Nation has him imprisoned in. It's not time. It's so far from time it's not even funny, but he was bored. A little bit of swinging never hurt anybody.

A girl walks out onto the rooftop below. Dark-haired and her hands pulling a shawl tight around her shoulders like it's cold. She tilts her head up to look at him, and the moon comes out from behind the clouds.

The shawl is silver fur. Silver seal fur, he realizes with a sinking heart. They found the skin he'd been entrusted with, the one he's supposed to return when Pakku finds Kanna again. So his friend can give it to the woman he loves.

It's been sixty years since that night. Sixty years, and Bumi can feel the dust collected in the silver fur. It's almost enough to pull on, if he had hands free to move.

The Fire girl touches the sealskin and says nothing. She doesn't stroke it or fondle it or do what so many others with selkie skins do. It is a light touch, a glance of fingertips.

Bumi almost dares hope as she turns away to go inside.

Edited 2010-07-07 00:32 (UTC)

This was pretty neat! I like the little Pakku/Kana reference thrown in there, and the imagery is nice.

A, 3 and 19.

"When Ramses destroyed Syria- that was an accident. You? Are a *catastrophe!*"

"Oops." Aang rubbed the back of his head, trying to ignore the falling stone going past the windows.

Smoke rose from beneath the edges of the vampire lord's sleeves. Long Feng himself stood back in the one bit of shadow remaining in the Earth Queen's audience chamber. His arm was flung up to shield his face with his sleeve, and the end of his long braid had caught on fire.

"I, ah- just thought maybe a little light would be nice-" Aang said, scuffing his feet against the gilded bronze floor of the audience chamber.

"Of course you did," the vampire hissed, the sheer malice in his voice almost overwhelming. "I am quite certain you did not mean at all to trap me like this."

"I didn't!" Aang protested, and then the stones finished falling and all the windows were clear.

Long Feng's hands began to smoke.

Well, Aang thought dismally, at least it was late afternoon. The sun would set before too long-

But not before coming in through the west windows full-bore. Crap.

*cracks up* Ah- as ever, a little good intent and lot less wisdom makes for fun times.

D, numbers 7 and 13. Mood or the word (whatever, my brain obviously doen't work now) is: This is hilarious. Really.

"Oh dear," Ursa said, then slowly began to peel the dragonhide gloves off by tugging on the fingers. "Hakoda, make yourself useful and get the surgeon."

Hakoda managed to stifle his snicker and took off at a steady lope through the greenhouse. Bato looked after him, then down at the mess of bubotuber pus splattered across the bench, his robes, Ursa's robes and gloves, and Jeong Jeong's robes and bare hands.

Jeong Jeong gritted his teeth as painful boils formed on his hands. He reached for his wand, intending to conjure a stream of water to wash the mess off.

"Don't," Ursa snapped. "You'll get the pus into the grain. I'll do whatever it is you need."

"Water," Jeong Jeong growled, his voice tight with pain.

Ursa shook her head as she picked up her wand, then conjured a stream of water. "What is it with men? Ozai won't wear armor, and you won't wear the damn gloves."

"I'll wear them next time."

"This is our last class before OWLs! There isn't going to be a next time, Jeong Jeong!"

I have a one belief which stays strong every oment in my world: Men are morons. Thank you for providing proof for it.

Excuse me, I'll go cackle in peace.

I am loved!

B, 8 and 15, things fall apart.

The war is over.

The war is over.

Jet feels it in the land, in the wind, in the entire world. He feels furies stop and take notice of something.

His fury cowers in fear, making his bones rattle and the earth shiver with cracks.

The war is over.

***

After, he doesn't know where he goes or why. He just follows the earth, the cracks in it and the earthquakes. He follows, one foot in front of another, his eyes on the ground, his thoughts far from his body.

He senses his fury smashing other furies, feral furies that would harm him. The cracks in the earth get bigger, the quakes harder. His earth fury is taking other earth furies. Getting stronger. More powerful.

He puts one foot in front of the other.

***

Gentle hands touch his wrist, his forehead. Earth rattles then subsides, warm soil curling around his hard rock.

"It's all right," someone says. "It's all right. You haven't had any water for too long, that's all. Let me just get you out of the sun..."

That's not all, he wants to say, but his lips are cracked and dry and his mouth feels like a desert.

Breasts press against his side, and earthborn strength hefts him up. His eyes flicker open, and he sees a girl, a pretty girl, with a long braid and kind eyes. She smiles at him and he is too weak to smile back before she puts him in a soldier's carry across her shoulders.

The disconnect from the earth feels like his bones breaking, and he groans in pain.

"Sssssssh," she soothes, her strides becoming more measured and longer. She does not jostle him hardly at all, but she is covering so much distance. "Your fury is with us. I feel him. Sssssh."

He feels his fury, too, and the warm soil curled around it like the smell of the girl's hair curling around his body.

He misses his mother, he thinks dimly, but this girl is just as safe.

I like this fic, I like the surrealism and I love the last line. It's warm and comforting.

. . . *purr. purr. purrrrr.*

ILU. And this. <3

E, 14, melancholy

Katara smiled at the changeling boy. The changeling boy smiled at Katara, and her hips shifted subtly towards him, and his smile warmed even more.

Haru looked out the open window he had let himself in through. Then he let himself back out, Mother's nymph magics letting him ghost through sunlight and wood like he was a part of them.

The compass he had painstakingly forged from the slivers of Lee's swords, he left on the table.

Maybe she'd notice it.

Maybe someone else would.

He closed his eyes. He was a dwarf, beholden to no court and no person but his father. What did he care if the Unseelie Court found the device? He hadn't much cared for Lee in the first place, but Katara didn't like to see Mai hurting...

He went back to his forge.

Beautiful.
And I'm sorry I didn't respond earlier, I didn't recognize it as mine in my inbox.

E 4 2

Prompt: bad fanfic cliches

That's not a prompt I can work with. Please suggest a different one.

Rivers

"Old Man River," the Unseelie King said, striding out into the river without fear. The flowing water stole his power and took it down to the sea; he was more helpless than a human as it stripped his illusions away. Bloody horns stayed, inhuman beauty stayed, gold eyes and long beard stayed. The fell armor vanished, the great sword vanished.

He stood nude and unadorned, without weapon or shield.

The sound of a fiddle came over the water. "You want your son."

"I was not aware the Mississippi blessed you with his power," the Tuatha de Danaan murmured, slanting a sidelong glance at the stromkarl.

The water spirit snorted and took bow from string. "Of course not. You've been too deep in the wilds, sinking into the swamps and pulling power out of the tangled roots and lives."

"So I have. While you... You tried to kill my wife once."

"I'll do it again in a heartbeat."

"But?"

The stromkarl's face hardened. "My granddaughter is too damn close to where you'll be striking."

The Unseelie King smiled. "Perhaps we can help each other this time around, Pakku."

Edited 2010-07-18 02:49 (UTC)

I curious, when Ozai refers to him as "Old man river" does he mean he's one of many river spirits, or the spirit of all rivers? I guess the second because he's powerful enough to strip the Unseelie king of power.... on the other hand it would seem odd then that he would be surprised that the Mississippi would have his power.

Ol' Man River (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ol%27_Man_River) refers to the Mississippi itself.

Meme ganked from Rin

I really should not be enabling here.

Fae New Orleans: Hakoda and Piandao, "If my fate is to die, I must simply laugh."

Re: Fae New Orleans: Hakoda and Piandao, "If my fate is to die, I must simply laugh."

*MEANWHILE, ENABLES GLADLY*

Aleratar: Ozai and Song, you said you'd never love me, but the night isn't over yet.

Re: Aleratar: Ozai and Song, you said you'd never love me, but the night isn't over yet.

Re: Aleratar: Ozai and Song, you said you&#39;d never love me, but the night isn&#39;t over yet.

Re: Aleratar: Ozai and Song, you said you&#39;d never love me, but the night isn&#39;t over yet.

Re: Aleratar: Ozai and Song, you said you&amp;#39;d never love me, but the night isn&amp;#39;t over

Re: Aleratar: Ozai and Song, you said you&amp;#39;d never love me, but the night isn&amp;#39;t over

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Re: Aleratar: Ozai and Song, you said you&amp;amp;#39;d never love me, but the night isn&amp;amp;#39

Re: Aleratar: Ozai and Song, you said you'd never love me, but the night isn't over yet.

no subject

asdfghjkl;

Re: asdfghjkl;

Technologic: Sokka and Pakku, closing the eye of the storm

Re: Technologic: Sokka and Pakku, closing the eye of the storm

Re: Technologic: Sokka and Pakku, closing the eye of the storm

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Aleratar: Piandao and Mai, this hurricane's chasing us all underground

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Selkie: Bumi and Mai, moonlight shadows

Re: Selkie: Bumi and Mai, moonlight shadows

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Vampatar: Long Feng and Aang, "When Ramses destroyed Syria - that was an accident."

Re: Vampatar: Long Feng and Aang, "When Ramses destroyed Syria - that was an accident."

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Harry Potter Crossover: Jeong Jeong and Ursa, this is hilarious. really.

Re: Harry Potter Crossover: Jeong Jeong and Ursa, this is hilarious. really.

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Aleratar: Song and Jet, things fall apart

Re: Aleratar: Song and Jet, things fall apart

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Fae New Orleans: Haru, melancholy

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Fae New Orleans: Pakku and Ozai, rivers

Re: Fae New Orleans: Pakku and Ozai, rivers

Re: Fae New Orleans: Pakku and Ozai, rivers

MEANWHILE, ENABLES GLADLY

Re: Aleratar: Ozai and Song, you said you'd never love me, but the night isn't over yet.

Re: Aleratar: Ozai and Song, you said you'd never love me, but the night isn't over yet.

Re: Aleratar: Ozai and Song, you said you'd never love me, but the night isn't over

Re: Aleratar: Ozai and Song, you said you'd never love me, but the night isn't over

Re: Aleratar: Ozai and Song, you said you&#39;d never love me, but the night isn&#39

Re: Aleratar: Ozai and Song, you said you&#39;d never love me, but the night isn&#39