AtLA fic: Cracky AtLA 'Ships
For the record, I'm trying to get myself into a writing mood again, not to mention get used to a new keyboard that's completely messing up my typing rhythm. Also, these are cracky little drabbly things, not meant to have any sort of real story to them, just something to make people scratch their heads in puzzlement and giggle. Or possibly send me letter bombs after they read the last one, which is a little over-the-top, even for me. Or, a lot over-the-top, actually.
(Yue didn't die in the siege at the North Pole. Just go with it, okay?)
It was a secret, long hidden from nearly everyone, that Iroh's wife had divorced him and fled the country. Not out of fear or hatred of her former husband, but simply that she could no longer stand the casual cruelty and obsession that so characterised the Fire Nation's leaders.
So it wasn't her being alive that shocked Iroh so much when he saw her again after so many years. It was that young Sokka, who had taken advantage of the diplomatic mission to the North Pole to catch a ride there to see his girlfriend, Princess Yue, was being introduced to Yue's mother, and that mother was Iroh's former wife.
"Iroh?" she gasped as he stepped forward.
"Min?" he asked. He wasn't sure what he was asking, just that clearly he had to ask something.
She recovered with grace, as she always had. "Iroh, this is my husband, Chief Arnook, and our daughter, Yue. Arnook, Yue, this is my former husband, General Iroh."
Predictably, Sokka spoke first. "Does this make me and Zuko like cousins or something?" he asked.
It was the most perfect and strange matching of opposites. They saw everything in opposition and neither could stand the other's way of seeing the world. At the same time, with their ability to accept the value of other people's contributions generally, it meant that both of them liked the other's friends.
And of course, there were the sparks of attraction.
So with the war over, they would each take turns visiting the home of the other. It took very little time for them both to have no immediate neighbours, since no one wanted to sleep near to that much . . . enthusiastic noise.
Teo showed up at the Fire Lord's front door some six months after the initial meeting. "I can't take it anymore," he declared as he rolled into the palace. "I'm here to work with your engineers, because I can't take it. If Dad starts asking me to call Aunt Wu 'Mom', I'm going to go bonkers."
Zuko and Azula had agreed on very little as children. They still agreed on very little, but this particular development had them huddled together in a corner trying to get as sozzled as possible to get the bad pictures out of their heads.
Katara and Sokka found them, and Katara was unsuccessfully trying not to snicker as she patted Zuko's arm comfortingly. "It's not that bad," she tried to reassure him.
"It's that swampbender Hue," Zuko slurred flatly.
"And his loincloth," Azula added with a shudder that was immediately echoed by Zuko.
"I dunno," Sokka said consideringly. "It's not all bad. Your mom's pretty hot in that little loinclothy thing of hers, so he's gotta have something going for him."
"Not enough alcohol in the world," moaned Zuko.
Aang woke to a strange sight.
It took a moment to recognise the girl in front of him in all the leather, but the strange sideways pigtails gave it away. "Meng?"
She grinned in that disturbing way she had, and said, "I always said I'd get you," she told him. "So I asked my older sister to help."
Stepping out of the shadows was another familiar face. "Jun?"
The bounty hunter nodded. "By the way, don't try to get out of the ropes," she said casually. "Even the Avatar's not getting out of those."
"What do you want?" he asked.
Meng climbed on top of him with a gleam in her eye that made Aang uncomfortably aware of how much both she and he had grown and changed since puberty hit. "I told you," she said, "You." She turned to her older sister. "Crop please."
In later years, when he told that story, Sokka would get a glazed look on his face, muttering "Kinky," and most of his male audience would look pretty envious.
Aang just tried hard not to look too smug.
He gave up everything for his one true love. All the power, the strength, even his immortality. It was worth it in the end, though.
Well, there were some parts that were annoying.
The Avatar leaned over. "Are you sure you don't want me to see if we can't do something for the both of you?" the boy asked as Hei Bai's mate, the lovely she-bear Bosco, put up with Kuei making oochy-oo noises at their cubs.
Zuko gave up on ever getting the answers to his mother's location out of his father, after it turned out the man enjoyed Zuko's latest attempt to torture the answers out of him. Also? He was never getting that picture out of his head.
"Who's your mama?" came the demand of the decrepit old lady.
"You're my Hama-mama!" shouted the former Fire Lord.
Zuko turned to the sick-looking guards. "I'm giving you a pay raise," he promised.
Fin
Umm . . . I'm really sorry?
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