AU Meme

[beckyh2112]

Give me an AU prompt, and I'll write you something of at least a hundred words. All AUs I've done before, except LaS, Assimilation, Flint, and DotM, can be requested. I might deny some prompts if they involve something plot-centric to the last part of "Bedrock".

Give a character name, then AU prompt. More details make me happy, though I can't promise I'll touch on everything in the prompt.

Three slots for everybody, five slots for dark_puck, spyridona, suzukiblu, and neldluva. Bonus slots are available if you request Zhao, Pakku, or Jeong Jeong.

I promise to answer at least one request.

MEME IS CLOSED.

Comments

[littleseastar.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, how 'bout...

Toph, if her family had been poor.

Mai, modern-day, crushing on the boy in the tea shop.

Toph, if her family had been poor

[beckyh2112.livejournal.com]

"The child will be a strong earthbender," the midwife said. "You can feel jade-stone bones already."

Lao said nothing. He merely picked up his straw hat and went out into the fields. The plowing had to be done whether Poppy would have an earthbender or not, and the plow and oxen returned to the neighbors he had borrowed them from.

The earth shivered under his feet, and he clamped down on his earthbending to keep the crystals from growing in his footsteps.

("Useless little bitch!" His father roared and struck him, and that was how Lao learned that only women manipulated crystals and only boys who had let themselves be fucked could do womanly things.

That was how he learned it was better not to be a 'bender at all than to 'bend crystals.)

He hoped the midwife was right. A strong earthbender could be a real help on the farm.

***

It was almost time for harvest when Poppy had their baby. The midwife was pleased at such an easy first birth and praised Poppy's child-bearing hips. Poppy was exhausted but content as she passed the child to Lao.

He held his little daughter and something like tenderness uncurled in him. "Toph," he said. It sounded like 'tough', and she certainly would be.

Then Toph opened her eyes, and all the hope went out of Lao's spirit.

"She's blind," he said coldly, and Poppy wailed and the midwife shook. The girl was blind. It didn't matter if she was a strong earthbender, she was blind. What good was a blind earthbender?

He and Poppy had barely scraped through the last few winters. Harvests had been bad. This year might be better, but after the local headman took his share and Lao paid what was owed for his loans...

He'd planned to do without some in the winter. He'd planned to give Poppy and the baby a good fighting chance. But a blind girl-

"Give her back to me, Lao," Poppy begged. She'd always known his heart before he did.

"No," he said, and he picked up his hat and walked out with the little girl.

***

He walked for two days, feeding the child on milk stolen from piggeese and ostrich-horses. He hardly ate himself, and he swayed on his feet when he arrived at the convent.

The nuns took him in, fed him better than he had eaten in a long time. Their convent was not a great and rich one, but it had good lands given to it by previous lords. It had devout nuns. It had earthbenders and scholars.

He gave them Toph, because they could give his little blind girl a life actually worth living.

Then he went home.

Maybe the next child would be able to see.

Re: Toph, if her family had been poor

[littleseastar.livejournal.com]

That's so interesting, her being given to a convent. (I get the feeling she will not be easy for the nuns to raise.xD)

That little bit about men who bend crystal was anoter one of those depths you give your worlds that just enhance it so much.

(Sorry if that had any typos, I'm typing one handed due to burned fingers.)

Re: Toph, if her family had been poor

[beckyh2112.livejournal.com]

It seemed the kinder of the two ideas I had for what Lao could do with her.

Earth Kingdom homophobia strikes again! And this time in a rather more painful way than it has in some of my other pieces.