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beckyh2112 is having a anti whump-Zuko meme. It's gonna be good, but I thought it would be fun to explore the... darker side of our favorite fandom, in contrast.
This is not just Zuko-whump meme, per say. All Avatar characters are welcome in order to explore their darkest sides. After all, the road to hell is paved with good intentions isn't it? *Grin*
So go on and reply with up to 4 requests. I promise to do at least 1 from everyone, so do your darnest to be dark. (Although I'm drawing the line at rape and incest.)
beckyh2112 is having a anti whump-Zuko meme. It's gonna be good, but I thought it would be fun to explore the... darker side of our favorite fandom, in contrast. This is not just Zuko-whump meme, per say. All Avatar characters are welcome in order to explore their darkest sides. After all, the road to hell is paved with good intentions isn't it? *Grin*
So go on and reply with up to 4 requests. I promise to do at least 1 from everyone, so do your darnest to be dark. (Although I'm drawing the line at rape and incest.)
no subject
Aang, giving in to his past selves.
Mai a la The Beach: "Don't touch me." Not that line, necessarily, but that feeling. The "fuck off, you don't know me."
post-cannon Zuko and Azula.
Katara Bloodbending Zuko Part 1
.
.
.
Katara knew that Zuko had guessed why she had come the moment she stepped into the room. A smile, hesitant and false, played across his face and stretched the fine lines around his good eye. A decade of rule over his people had made its mark on his handsome face.
Their eyes met, and for just a moment Katara wondered if Zuko meant for this to play out here and now. In front of his advisors and palace court. But he only gave a small nod and rose from his seat, dismissing the meeting without word or gesture.
Katara’s hands clenched under her robes. If this was to be a private meeting… So be it.
Had this been ten years ago, when they were both young; she the companion of the Avatar and he the new Fire Lord, she would have already been screaming at him. Now she was ambassador to the Water Tribes, mother of two rambunctious airbending children. Katara had learned patience the hard way. She kept silent, and so did he.
Zuko’s private chambers had hardly changed since Mai’s death, Katara noted. With the exception of a wooden-red cradle. Zuko crossed the room to it at once, dismissing a flurry of nurse-maids with a single glare. He bent to check on his son – putting the baby between himself and Katara, she thought, cynically. Mai would have been so proud.
“I know why you’re here,” Zuko said, as he pulled a tiny red blanket up and tucking it under little Lu Ten’s chin.
“Do you?” Katara had meant for her voice to be strong and cold as sea-ice. She hated the bit of wistfulness that crept in anyway. Longing for the time when things had been good between them… when she had considered Zuko to be a friend.
The Fire Lord didn’t answer for a moment. He fiddled with his son’s blanket, smoothing out invisible creases. Katara wished she could have just imagined the small look of tenderness on his face. She wanted to hate him, wanted to think he was a complete monster… she didn’t want to see the boy she had known in there at all. Not anymore.
Finally satisfied, Zuko straightened up and looked at her. “I didn’t have any choice, Katara. They’re my people. Not yours. Not Aang’s. Mine.”
“And it’s your job to protect them! And… and you…” Something in her throat closed up and she shook her head. She had thought she had been beyond this by now. Beyond the rage. The disgust. “There were still people—whole families still untouched. Zuko, how could you?”
Katara Bloodbending Zuko Part 2
“You could have quarantined them!” she was shouting now, tears making tracks down her face. She could still smell the scent of char when she and Appa over-flew the island just that morning… Zuko must have used the old airships. The remaining healthy villagers of the island had apparently fought back, and fiercely. The skeleton of an airship still lay in the harbor. But it had all been in vein. The island was reduced to of things that had once been homes, maybe even people… All burned. All dead. “Waterhealers were coming. If you just gave us time—“
Zuko slashed a smoking hand downward, cutting her off. “If even one infected person got off that island, it could have spread to the rest of my country or to the Earth Kingdom. It’s a risk I couldn’t take.”
“Your uncle would be ashamed of you.”
For the first time, a look of genuine pain flickered across his face. He looked down, hands tight on the top rail of the crib. “I know,” he said, softly. “But I am Fire Lord, and sometimes that means doing the wrong thing for the right reason. I suppose I’ll pay for it in the afterlife, but you can tell Aang it’s my burden.”
“Yes,” she said. The coldness she had been reaching for had returned to her voice, hardening it. “It’s your burden. You should be punished for every man, woman and child you had killed.”
Zuko didn’t answer for a long moment. “Aang will forgive me,” he said. “He always does.”
“Not this time,” Katara promised.
He let out a long sigh and nodded, almost as if he had been expecting that answer. “I’ll understand if this means our friendship.”
“You just don’t get it, do you?” she said.
“Katara,” he said, still in that weary voice she didn’t believe for a second. “You have no idea how fast the plague was spreading. Those people were going to die anyway. What I gave them was a mercy.”
“I saw the airships.”
Katara Bloodbending Zuko Part 3
“You told Aang and I that they were decommissioned and taken apart,” Katara continued, when he said nothing. “How many more fleets do you have?”
“None! Look, you don’t understand.” Zuko finally rounded the crib, walking towards her with an odd half smile on his face. It looked… wrong, somehow. Then again, he was always a bad liar. “Those were… There were threats against my nation. I have the right to defend myself.”
“Was there really a plague?” Katara asked, quietly. “Or was that a test run?”
Zuko’s stride halted, just for a moment. And the look on his face was all the answer Katara needed. Maybe Zuko saw it too for all the torches in the room brightened…
… And Katara lifted her hands, shaped into claws.
The sparks on Zuko’s palms died before they even had chance to kindle fire. One gesture and his arms locked straight down firm against his sides.
He fought. He fought like nothing she had ever felt before. Katara had chosen her time right – a blue moon held full in the sky. But she had to force him down inch by inch, shutting blood away from his lungs when he opened his mouth to scream, diverting more into the soft tissue of his eyes – forcing him, by pure pain to submit.
“Y-you can’t,” he gasped, even as his knees buckled and capillaries burst across his good cheek. “I’m… Fire Lord…”
“I’m sorry, Zuko,” she whispered, and was surprised that despite it all… she actually meant it. “But the world can’t have another war. The madness in your family stops here.”
And she held him there, breathless, until he was too weak to struggle anymore.
Katara didn’t kill him, although a part of her wanted too. The Fire Nation would fall into chaos without a ruler, and right now Zuko was all they had. Relaxing out of her stance, she moped a sleeve across her face – it came back equal parts sweat and tears.
Then she crossed the room to the crib and reached down for the baby.
Katara Bloodbending Zuko Part 4
“Nnnnooo….” Zuko’s voice was warped oddly, half rasp, half moan. He had his head turned towards her, the whites of his eyes filled with blood. He made a jerking motion with his hand, but could not get up. It was a minor miracle he was even conscious at all. “M-my son…”
Katara narrowed her eyes. She walked over to the prone man and when he reached for her boot, she kicked it away. “If you want your son ever to know you, you will keep your promise and dismantle your war machines.” She saw Zuko’s eyes widen and she hitched the twisting infant closer. Aang was a firebender. He would teach little Lu Ten to step on the right path. Turning, she said. “Your son will be raised to value life. All life.”
And then she walked away.
“No….” Zuko rasped. His voice was no more than a harsh whisper. He struggled, flopped like a fish, but his arms and legs were too bloodless and numb. He couldn’t rise. “Guards! Guards! Please… Katara…!”
Katara shut the door on his cries. A single tear slipped down her cheek.
Re: Katara Bloodbending Zuko Part 4
They're both so dark, in their own different ways.
The best part for me is that brief standoff, that Zuko lost before it began.
<3
Re: Katara Bloodbending Zuko Part 4
Zuko hardly ever wins any argument against Katara, and this is no different. hehe. My goal was to make them both wrong, in their own ways, so I'm glad that came through!
Re: Katara Bloodbending Zuko Part 4
And yeah, they're both so, so in the wrong, but true to themselves -- Zuko like fire -- fierce and violent -- and Katara like water, the ocean's uncaring decimation of tidal waves and typhoons.
*shiver*
Re: Katara Bloodbending Zuko Part 4
WHAT WAS THAT IM CRYING!
JESUS! he loves hiss chiiiild!
Nooooooo!