[avatar] mutable
First Avatar one-shot!
Zuko-centric. Introspection as always. Zutara hints-- turn away if it ain't your cuppa tea.
-----
Change is a word thrown about too often, he muses.
By the dissatisfied commonfolk who couldn't help but want what they didn't have, or the disgruntled wealthy who couldn't realize that they had it already, and people in general who weren't courageous enough to use a word that better highlighted their own inadequacies.
Or better yet, by the women fluttering and flocking in the marketplaces every morning, recounting in breathless excitement their latest life-changing experience and their entirely new outlook on things! which may or may not have been influenced by the handsome young traveling philosopher who happened to be in town that day.
(the herb-lore guru who he'd summoned on request of his uncle, who was in need of an uncommon leaf of local tea, commented idly that making a living of philosophy made you less qualified to teach it than those who'd lived it)
By the councilors and politicians in court, wheedling that change was needed to the budgeting of the treasury, or that peace was pleasant but sorely overrated and that change brought on by the might of the Fire Nation might be, ah, beneficial--
(at which point he would point out that he was instrumental in bringing about the peace they so carelessly referred to, and his observation would be punctuated by a sudden leap in all the lighted flames)
By the noblewomen who endeavored to dig their long, painted talons into him from before he'd even hit puberty and laughed liltingly-- and gratingly-- on how easily men could change, chiseled away by their wiles, left to fall once goals were attained.
(and of course they were baffled when they realized that none of them had enough of an effect to change the then-prince-now-Fire-Lord's demeanor enough to their liking, save for perhaps the fact that he was so much more inwardly annoyed when they were around)
But he had grown too old in too short of a lifespan so far to suggest that people never changed and events never changed them. The marred skin over a third of his head, the subtle traces of his uncle he hadn't taken note of until he realized a steaming cup of tea was never absent from his own side (he favored chrysanthemum tea but damned if he'd let that become common knowledge), the day he faced a boy-turned-young-man with arrows across his skin and a world on his shoulders without malice--
The person who's changed him the most and yet not at all laughs, and he feels the tease of water against his cheek though he sits well over an arm's length from her.
You don't have to change, she says; not for me.
But I have, he thinks, or at the very least you've brought out parts of me I forgot existed.
Like greater compassion. Like acceptance. Like patience--
And then he finds himself with a lapful of happy waterbender and wonders just how much patience he'll really have if she keeps teasing him like that.
Zuko-centric. Introspection as always. Zutara hints-- turn away if it ain't your cuppa tea.
-----
Change is a word thrown about too often, he muses.
By the dissatisfied commonfolk who couldn't help but want what they didn't have, or the disgruntled wealthy who couldn't realize that they had it already, and people in general who weren't courageous enough to use a word that better highlighted their own inadequacies.
Or better yet, by the women fluttering and flocking in the marketplaces every morning, recounting in breathless excitement their latest life-changing experience and their entirely new outlook on things! which may or may not have been influenced by the handsome young traveling philosopher who happened to be in town that day.
(the herb-lore guru who he'd summoned on request of his uncle, who was in need of an uncommon leaf of local tea, commented idly that making a living of philosophy made you less qualified to teach it than those who'd lived it)
By the councilors and politicians in court, wheedling that change was needed to the budgeting of the treasury, or that peace was pleasant but sorely overrated and that change brought on by the might of the Fire Nation might be, ah, beneficial--
(at which point he would point out that he was instrumental in bringing about the peace they so carelessly referred to, and his observation would be punctuated by a sudden leap in all the lighted flames)
By the noblewomen who endeavored to dig their long, painted talons into him from before he'd even hit puberty and laughed liltingly-- and gratingly-- on how easily men could change, chiseled away by their wiles, left to fall once goals were attained.
(and of course they were baffled when they realized that none of them had enough of an effect to change the then-prince-now-Fire-Lord's demeanor enough to their liking, save for perhaps the fact that he was so much more inwardly annoyed when they were around)
But he had grown too old in too short of a lifespan so far to suggest that people never changed and events never changed them. The marred skin over a third of his head, the subtle traces of his uncle he hadn't taken note of until he realized a steaming cup of tea was never absent from his own side (he favored chrysanthemum tea but damned if he'd let that become common knowledge), the day he faced a boy-turned-young-man with arrows across his skin and a world on his shoulders without malice--
The person who's changed him the most and yet not at all laughs, and he feels the tease of water against his cheek though he sits well over an arm's length from her.
You don't have to change, she says; not for me.
But I have, he thinks, or at the very least you've brought out parts of me I forgot existed.
Like greater compassion. Like acceptance. Like patience--
And then he finds himself with a lapful of happy waterbender and wonders just how much patience he'll really have if she keeps teasing him like that.