Rebecca Hb. (
beckyh2112) wrote2010-07-23 09:27 pm
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Quick Meme: Demon'Verse
(Yes, I'll get back to my other memes eventually, but I want to play with my shinies right now.)
You may blame my newfound love of the Detective Inspector Chen novels for this entirely.
Previous installments are:
- Ozai and Lu Ten, enjoying life
- Ursa/Ozai, the first impression was... memorable
This AU is Fire Nation-royal centric, so not including at least one of them will leave me flailing as much as I did over getting Selkie-verse Bumi and Mai in the random-draw meme.
One request. Two requests to the usual suspects.
MEME IS CLOSED.
You may blame my newfound love of the Detective Inspector Chen novels for this entirely.
Previous installments are:
- Ozai and Lu Ten, enjoying life
- Ursa/Ozai, the first impression was... memorable
This AU is Fire Nation-royal centric, so not including at least one of them will leave me flailing as much as I did over getting Selkie-verse Bumi and Mai in the random-draw meme.
One request. Two requests to the usual suspects.
MEME IS CLOSED.
no subject
I sit on my second. >_>Duties as a Minister of Lust.
Duties at the Ministry of Lust
It was also obvious how much the building followed the whims of the Minister. The current one had found her predecessor's taste in building design to be both crude and tacky. While she couldn't do anything about the fact the Ministry was made of flesh, she could at least rearrange the design to please herself.
Ozai, for his part, found the redesign to inspire far more lustful thoughts than the previous blatant phallic and yonic state of the Ministry. For one blessed thing, Ozai's office actually had a door now, rather than a hymen.
Ozai leaned back in his chair, dictating to one of the insect-eyed lesser lust demons, "If the Greater Lord Three thinks the techniques useful in the Fire Nation will work in the Earth Kingdom, then she is sadly mistaken. The Earth Kingdom has an entirely different culture, and the Ministry of Lust has never made many in-roads there. Wealth and War, of course, love the damn place, and Epidemics has a field-day over there regularly.
"Lust, however, needs to be marketed. Get Epidemics out of sexually-transmitted diseases for good long while. Make it safe. Get plays and novels emphasizing the purity of love- bear with me here. No one ever marries for love. People certainly may come to love their spouses, but they don't marry for it. So instead, we teach them that love only comes from outside of marriage, that the great and powerful loves are with someone you could and would never actually marry."
His secretary blinked. "That's brilliant, Greater Lord Five!"
Ozai waved a hand dismissively. "It's merely part of the first phase. Let's continue..."
Re: Duties at the Ministry of Lust
I like how mechanical it all is, one would suspect there be a nature of chaos. (Of course, I need to read these books. If I read them, it wouldn't be a surprise for me.)
It's very neat. ^_^
Ozai/Ursa and Lu Ten, shocking discovery
Guards jerked to attention as he stepped into the antechamber in Ursa's apartment. He surveyed them, smelling no taint of Hell beyond the faint passing of Ozai's presence. Yet they were a different set from the ones who had been here last time, who had been different from the ones the time before.
One corner of his mouth drew up in a smile. The Firelord tried so hard.
The door swept open, and Ursa's face fell as she laid eyes on him.
"I'm looking for my uncle," he informed her, tail flicking back and forth. "The Jade-Eyed Emperor has need of him."
"Ozai isn't here."
"What?" Lu Ten's tail froze, then he caught another scent- "You. You're pregnant."
Poison flared along his tail like heat as the sheath pulled back from the massive hooked barb. She was pregnant, she was bearing Uncle's child, this pathetic little meatbag-!
Ursa merely looked tired. "We're well aware of that, Lu Ten. Why do you think Ozai isn't here right now? He's gone to find a midwife who can handle the birth."
Lu Ten snarled, "He's needed in Hell, by the Emperor's command. And you-"
"And I," she said, raising her chin imperiously, "am quite done with you, Lu Ten son of Iroh son of Azulon son of Sozin. Begone!"
Her words cracked across him like command, her will shoving him against the veil of worlds-
The protection of summoner's blood was gone, and it sunk hooks into his spirit-
He sprawled bloodily on the floor of Uncle's antechamber in Hell.
Re: Ozai/Ursa and Lu Ten, shocking discovery
Of course, he's obviously in love with Ozai, poor thing.
no subject
Ozai/Ursa; second meeting
Ozai/Ursa, second meeting
There was a great celebration that night. The demons had not taken the Firelord's daughter; perhaps the curse on their nation was broken. She was too embarrassed to say she had vomited on the demon who had come, and too proud to take credit for deeds she had not done.
It was a miserable party.
Ursa begged off early, retiring to bed. The clean cotton sheets caressed her skin, and she sank into the pillows with a grateful sigh.
***
In the morning, there was a night-black lily on the pillow next to her.
Ursa's eyes narrowed, and she incinerated it and the pillow it rested on in a burst of blue fire.
***
Her father began to talk of marriage. Ursa scowled - no one had ever spoken of marrying her before. She did not want to be married off in some game of power between the Firelord and his nobles and generals. Her mother's father was Avatar Roku, her father's father was of the long line of Firelord. She was not some commodity to be handed off.
But no one had expected her to live past her twenty-first birthday, and she had.
***
Her dreams that night were full of baroque darkness, and they left her exhausted when she awoke.
Two midnight-colored lilies sat on the pillow next to her, tied with a crimson red ribbon.
***
Li, or perhaps Lo, brought up a crystal vase at her request. Ursa filled it with water and put the lilies in.
When she came back to her quarters that evening, they had wilted.
***
A scent invaded her dreams, spicy and male. A simple dream of the beaches on Ember Island transformed to a noble's son kissing the inside of her thighs as she lay on the sand, a guardsman leading her through firebender forms with his chest against her back and his mouth against her hair, a servant slowly and carefully undressing her and undoing her hair to fall in long rivers against her skin.
She awakened in the morning to find three black lilies tied with a strip of parchment on the pillow beside her.
'Add three drops of blood to the water.'
***
This time, the lilies did not wilt.
***
The talk of marriage washed around Ursa, though several times Daiki tried to speak to her about it. Father wanted to wed her to Osamu, the heir of Buyou no Long Shima, so they could bind the island's wealth to the Firelord's line. The war would go so much faster with all of that wealth at their disposal.
Ursa smiled as Daiki explained that for the fourth time, then patted his arm. "Father will be disappointed."
She didn't explain what she meant by that. She wasn't entirely sure she understood it herself.
***
That night, she dreamt a demon.
Dark leather wings rose over his head, claws at the far joint, and velvety soft to her touch. Long dark hair spilled unbound over his back, and she wrapped her fingers in his dragon's tongue beard. Molten gold eyes regarded her with amusement and something more, and his fine full mouth peeled back to reveal a carnivore's teeth.
Yet she was not afraid.
He dressed in a way she had only seen in history books. Loose crimson pants with golden slippers on his backwards feet. A sash of crimson across his chest, leaving most of his muscular body open to admiring eyes and hands. His skin was sun-kissed gold, striped black like a tiger.
Black lacquer claws cupped her chin, and she yanked him into a kiss.
***
In the morning, there were four black lilies tied with another strip of parchment.
'Leave your window open tonight.'
Re: Ozai/Ursa, second meeting
Re: Ozai/Ursa, second meeting
This is wondrous. I like how Ozai is courting Ursa now, despite the... memorable first meeting.
I also like the detail of the black lilies needing blood to live. <333
Ozai and Zhao, humans can stop demons (1/2)
The imperial city was the piece of Hell closest to the veil between worlds. As the first solid piece of reality since leaving the mortal world, it should have been a welcome experience.
It really wasn't. Stepping onto the luminescent ice docks was like stepping into a Northern Water Tribe harbor. Taking the path up to the city itself where it nestled in the bowl of something that wasn't a volcano sickeningly resembled the path from the harbor to Capital City of the Fire Nation. And the city itself...
The city itself was divided into four great rings. The outer ring belonged to the poorest of demons and most human shades, the middle ring to almost all other demons and the wealthiest of human shades, the upper ring to the Ministries and the businesses servicing their employees-
And the central ring held the Imperial Palace.
From here, at the edge of the high bone wall, Zhao could see the banners were still down. The Jade-Eyed Emperor was not in residence; he never had been for as long as Zhao had had dealings with Hell.
Zhao gritted his teeth. He and his patron in the Ministry of War needed to talk. He'd found something in Wan Shi Tong's spirit library that the Greater Lord Seven would be interested in.
***
The lobby of the Ministry of War was just as Brutalist as he remembered it being. For all the apparent refinement of demons, they never seemed to get it quite right. Everything was always too much with them.
Some sort of commotion caught his attention, and he turned to see a lust demon stepping out of an elevator. The gold-skinned male drew many eyes and hands reached out as if to touch cloth or skin.
The lust demon's wings flared in threat, and every hand drew back.
Zhao admired the demon as he crossed the lobby. The lust demon really was quite lovely, much more conventionally attractive than some of them. Of course, Greater Lord Seven had warned him that most lust-demons delighted in seducing the most unwilling, and what better way to make a person unwilling than to be grotesque?
Men would climb over themselves to fall into the Hell of that one's bed, which probably wasn't a bit of a challenge for the demon. Maybe he specialized in seducing priests.
His musings were interrupted by the arrival of Underling No, his usual liason with Greater Lord Seven.
"Greater Lord Seven is busy right now," she said with the appearance of genuine unhappiness at his misfortune. But she's had a lot of practice with humans. "Several of the Lesser Lords are available, however, if you wish to discuss your contract."
"No," he said politely. "I can wait for Greater Lord Seven to be free."
She frowned, and he wondered if he'd have to drop the tidbit about having been to the spirit library in order to get in to see his patron at all.
Ozai and Zhao, humans can stop demons (2/2)
Zhao snarled and whirled, taking in the tableau of two war-demons pulling out their swords. A number of similar crossbow bolts were scattered across the lobby, several demons and less lucky human shades impaled on them.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the gold presence of the lust-demon pause by the door.
"What the slag are they doing?" Zhao hissed at Underling No.
She shrugged. "Disagreements in War can get quite forceful. We need to get you out of here..."
"No," he growled, "They need to knock it off. Basic military discipline isn't too much to ask from war-demons."
He yanked a knife from his belt and slashed a character in his palm. A burst of firebending empowered it, and he threw the spell at the demons.
They flew apart, howling, as naptha-fire sprang to life on their skins. It burned and burned and burned, until their bodies collapsed as their spirits fled down to the lower levels.
"Better," Zhao said into the sudden silence.
"I agree," someone purred, and a faint scent grabbed his cock and demanded attention. "Quite a powerful firebender, aren't you?"
"Greater Lord Five of Lust!" Underling No squawked. "This one has a contract with Greater Lord Seven of War, and a meeting! Right now!" She grabbed Zhao by the arm and dragged him away.
He looked over his shoulder to see the gold-skinned lust demon standing there, a slight smile playing over his full lips.
Re: Ozai and Zhao, humans can stop demons (2/2)
Re: Ozai and Zhao, humans can stop demons (2/2)
Amazing how attention from the wrong demon can get you where you want to go faster. <3
Re: Ozai and Zhao, humans can stop demons (2/2)
no subject
Lu Ten and young Zuko, breakable
He tickled the little prince with his tail, listening to the boy giggle. Zuko was two and a half years old, walking around on his little backwards feet. Tiger-stripes ghosted over his skin, sometimes there and sometimes not. Lu Ten wasn't quite sure what to make of that, but he was pleased Sozin's stripes showed up on the half-human baby at all.
He had Uncle's gold eyes, and he'd picked up the silver teeth from somewhere, though his were disappointingly human-shaped. He hadn't inherited the wings, either, though sometimes demons grew into wings as they became more a part of the Ministry of Lust. Sometimes they didn't.
The candles danced with the boy's laughter, and Lu Ten eyed that askance. 'Bending was a human thing, just another thing a little bit shameful about Ozai's son.
"Play?" Zuko asked brightly, holding his hands up. "Play, Luten?"
"Lu Ten," he corrected. "Don't slur them together like that. And sure, we can play. Let's go visit the volcano and play tag with the lava, eh? See who can get the least spattered."
"LU TEN!"
His tail lashed, and Zuko giggled at the sudden motion.
"What?" Lu Ten snapped as Ursa appeared in the doorway. "You don't have to yell all the time, princess!"
"I wouldn't yell," she hissed, "if you were the slightest bit conscious of how much more delicate Zuko is than you."
Re: Lu Ten and young Zuko, breakable
Also, baby Zuko is the most adorable thing ever
no subject
Lu Ten, Ursa; what they expected was not exactly what they got
Lu Ten has never, ever seen his uncle with his powers so... blossomed. Sometimes he found himself caught up in the heady, electric feeling, and they fucked on his desk.
Afterwards, though, Uncle's powers still didn't fold themselves away in satiation.
"You," Lu Ten says one day, "have a problem."
"I," Ozai mimics, "have fallen in love."
"You definitely have a problem."
***
"You should meet my family," Ozai murmurs, one wing spread over Ursa as they lie in bed together. They gaze into each other's eyes like lovestruck teenagers, her and her demon, though she can feel his hardness against her thigh.
"Why should we do that?" She asks, shifting her leg to brush against him. "I like it being just the two of us."
The demon rumbls deep in his chest, gold eyes brightening. "But," he says, obviously resisting his baser instincts. For the moment. "If we are to be married..."
"Do demons' mothers harass them about not getting married too?" Ursa asks, grinning at the thought of some harridan nagging her Ozai.
"Yes." Ozai's eyes flick away. "Mother would probably like you... And the old bastard's on one of the lower levels, so we don't have to worry about what Father thinks."
"On one of the lower levels?" Ursa frowns as she tries to remember how the society of Hell works. She thinks, but she is not certain, that means Ozai's father was killed and hasn't yet worked his way back up to being alive. Well, as alive as demons get.
"My brother tore his heart out," Ozai says casually before he kisses her and she forgets all about the madness of demon families.
***
"You should meet her," Ozai says casually, and Lu Ten's instincts grab him by the throat and shake him.
Why hasn't he even heard a rumor of this woman already? Everyone knows Uncle has a taste for war-demons; the Ministry of War should be rife with rumors over who is being bedded by one of the less unpleasant members of the Ministry of Lust.
It should be, and it isn't.
"I'd like that," Lu Ten says mildly, seeming more interested in his stein of blood than in Uncle's offer.
***
"Why is it we have to summon your family up, but you can move freely between Hell and the human world?" Ursa asks, watching as Ozai makes his preparations.
The demon grins at her. "I was summoned to torment and kill you, my dear. Until that's done, my summoning remains in full effect."
"That's comforting."
Ozai dribbles black blood over the circle chalked on the carpets. None of the servants will be happy in the morning, but no one in the entire palace has been happy since Ursa took her demon-lover. He chants in Hell-tongue, and the fire in the center of the circle turns blue.
The demon that emerges is also blue. A deep, dark midnight blue, like clear nights over Ember Island. Black tiger-stripes dusk over his skin, and his eyes are a clear, brilliant gold. Wiry hair is pulled up in mockery of a soldier's topknot, and the features of his face are fine enough for her to see a resemblance to Ozai. He is broad-shoulders and muscular, dressed in metal armor like she has never seen before.
His eyes widen as he lays eyes on her, lips peel back to bare teeth like a tiger's. Black, she thinks, then catches a glint and realizes there are silver characters shining on his teeth.
His teeth are tarnished silver. She blinks.
"A human?" The blue demon snarls, and his voice sounds like the snarl of her father's war-engines. "How could you disgrace yourself with something so insipid, Uncle?"
It looked as if the in-laws wouldn't be much better than her own family about their marriage. Oh well.
Flame ignites on Ursa's fist.
Re: Lu Ten, Ursa; what they expected was not exactly what they got
hopefully. I'm definitely sensing some jealously from Lu Ten here, but I may be reading too much into it. This was great, seeing the parallels between Ozai's two existences. Thanks.no subject
Zuko, hiding his heritage
(They'd sent Azula after him, they'd sent Azula after him, they'd sent Azula and they told her she could be somebody if she brought him back, and-
And it was all a lie, wasn't it? They were both half-demons, and the Firelord loathed them both, and Azula would never achieve her ambitions in the mortal world.
Some nights, he didn't think either of them would.)
Zuko ran faster, pushing it out of his head. He needed to focus on the here and now. He and Jee needed to look like refugees from the war, Earthfolk refugees, and they needed to run as far from the war as they could. As far from the Fire Nation as they could.
Fire burned in his gullet, and he ran still faster.
When he found Jee, he threw the bundle of cloth at the lieutenant, then stalked around the clearing, words pouring out of his mouth as he explained what he'd figured out.
"The only place like that is Ba Sing Se," Jee said without looking up from the green and brown cloth he sorted through.
Zuko nodded, growling slightly. The Impenetrable City looked much like the Walled City in Hell, or so his father had told him on one of their few visits there. He... might know his way around a bit. "All right."
"Here, wear this," Jee said, tossing a bundle of brown cloth at him.
Zuko shook it out into a brown robe and scowled. "I can't fight in this, lieutenant."
"Drop the lieutenant." Jee shook out a green tunic and scowled at it. For an instant, his fingers smoldered. "Fucking hell, Zuko, we can't even use our names, much less our titles. And don't complain about the robe. It hides your feet."
Shame crashed through him as he glanced down. Backwards feet, the most visible mark of demon-blood he had. Anyone who saw them would know what he was, would be able to tell him out to Azula. They were even more distinctive than the scar Lu Ten had given him.
"Demon blood's rare," Jee said almost gently, "but it's not impossible to find. There's others out there, and there's likely to be some in Ba Sing Se. Once we're there, it'll just be a little quirk you have, Prince Zuko. We just got to get there."
Zuko nodded and picked up the brown robe. First, they'd get to Ba Sing Se, then he'd deal with the next part of it.
Re: Zuko, hiding his heritage
no subject
As always, ignore me if you don't want to fill this. ^^
no subject
no subject
no subject
Ilah, second
"Coquette," she said fondly, and her reflection grinned.
She really was a lovely demon - gold skin, gold wings, topaz eyes, topaz lips. But lovely demons were a dime a dozen. Mere beauty wasn't a reason for pride; certainly it was entirely worthless to her as a member of the Ministry of Lust. Any amateur could make someone lust for something beautiful.
Ilah considered the matter of her clothes. Jewel-colors, she decided, to complement her skin. More importantly, something covering and loose. A high-collar cut to flash just a tantalizing bit of her throat, her skirt torn in a thousand artful ways that should flash her legs to anyone but wouldn't ever reveal a scrap of golden skin. Bare arms, of course, because you couldn't go too far overboard with this covering-up.
Besides, bare arms showed how muscular she was. No soft and well-fed Imperial whore was she.
Insect-eyed servants arranged her long hair in a cascade down her back, and she adjusted the dress a little tighter across her chest. Not enough to be blatant, of course, but it wouldn't do for the Minister of War to forget she was a woman.
Ilah smiled and picked up the second invitation to have arrived in her office that morning. His Imperial Majesty was having one of his little soirees to bring the movers and shakers of the ministries together and watch them bicker.
Of course, any invitation from the Jade-Eyed Emperor over-rode anything else she might do.
A bit of a pity, since the first invitation had been from Azulon to go hunting.
Re: Ilah, second
Thanks for the fill!
no subject
Zuko, all that you are
He tried to ignore the whispers about the throne room. He knew he knelt differently from others - only his sister shared his backwards feet. He knew his father never appeared in formal court - his father was a demon of Hell and beholden to no one.
But his mother was a princess and a firebender, and he was a prince and a firebender. He belonged to the Firelord.
"Firelord Daiki," he said, pressing fist to palm in imitation of flame.
"Prince Zuko." His uncle's eyes were shadowed by the light cast from the curtain of flame in front of him. "You are almost sixteen, Prince Zuko. Almost a man of the Fire Nation, and a fully adult member of the royal house. It's time for you to earn that position." The flames lowered. "You will seek for the Avatar, Prince Zuko. You will find him and bring him to me."
Zuko felt his heart quail. The Avatar had been missing for a hundred years! Even Hell had not been able to find the Celestial-being, hidden as it was inside a human. Others had searched and searched without finding a trace of the man.
But if he found the Avatar, he would be accepted as a full member of the court. Zuko thought longingly of the whispers falling silent, of no longer hearing how his demon-blood weakened his firebending, how he was too unnatural for the Firelord to use as a pawn in a marriage-alliance, how he was too human to even be fashionable as a demon-lover. He would no longer be caught between Hell and the mortal world if he found the Avatar.
He would find the Avatar.
"As you command, Firelord," he said, pressing his forehead against the polished wooden floor.
Re: Zuko, all that you are
A very interesting universe you've crafted here, and I am definitely curious to explore it more! ::eyes other fics:: I love the twist on Zuko's hunt for the Avatar, and I love the little details- it reads very cinematically, I can really picture the scene! Picturing Zuko with backwards feet took a sec to wrap my brain around though. XD
Anyway, <3!
no subject
no subject
Iroh, a secretary is not a toy
He smiled. Ah, he did like them feisty. Not that any would ever measure up to his darling Zolena. "See I am not interrupted for the next three hours, Underling Zey."
The secretary nodded, her claws digging gouges in the desktop.
"Good girl," Iroh said fondly, before stepping away to offer an arm to his brother.
Once the ponderous metal door swung shut behind them, Ozai flipped his wings back disdainfully. "How do you ever get any work done, scaring your secretaries like that?"
Iroh raised an eye-ridge. "Says Greater Lord Five of the Ministry of Lust."
"We try not to rape our own subordinates." Ozai sat primly on the edge of a backed chair, giving his wings room. "It's bad for business. It's hard enough keeping our longtime employees from developing ennui for the whole job without making them afraid to deal with their superiors. Fear stifles creativity, lack of creativity breeds more ennui, people quit and take our secrets with them."
Iroh focused on the more interesting part of Ozai's comment. "'Try'?"
"We are lust demons."
Re: Iroh, a secretary is not a toy
*delighted* ^^
no subject
Zuko, Mai, Song, Jin, "I thought you locked the door."
"I told you to lock the door." Zuko's voice drifted weakly from the other room.
"I was rather busy holding your guts in," Song chastised him. "Demon or no, you're not getting far if you leave them all over the hall."
Re: Zuko, Mai, Song, Jin, "I thought you locked the door."
Jin will need to get a stronger stomach if she is planing to hang around Zuko, now I want to know what cut him up.