Something Amiss [Trans9]

[princeinexile]

You know, he shouldn't be this masochistic about his victories-- but that is the flaw of the Fire people; their reach exceeds their grasp. Here, it is no different. He just reduced his sister to glowering and snarling, and walked away secure in the knowledge that he had been chosen, marked by a better destiny then his father could have offered--

--but at the same time.... she had a lot of viciously sharp points and had driven them all home in his heart with the lethal grace she's always possessed. Which is why he ended up in the art room, with a singular memory in mind, trying to make that damn thing find it and play it.

"Next." Iroh stands before him in defiance of his demands, refusing to teach him the next set in his bending routine until he finishes his roast duck. "Next." He is a child, drenched and cold in a fountain in Mai's lap while Azula and Ty Lee laugh and mock, a smoldering apple on the ground. "Next." Jin leans up to kiss him, lips light and chaste and sweet, a promise that Ba Sing Se could give him things that the palace couldn't possibly...

Zuko sighs, and rubs his face. "I don't want these memories. I want-- one. Can't you give me that? One place-- one person. That's all I want, you miserable-- horrible-- bitch of a machine!"

Comments

[allican-do.livejournal.com]

She'd had a good time with Toph. Somehow, here, they were even more like friends than they'd ever really gotten to be at home. It was nice, it made this place something sweeter.

Other things did, too.

But Katara's lost the Earth girl, wandering the hallways, and can hear a voice coming from the art room. There's no reason why Toph would be in there - no images to bother her - but perhaps she'd just gone exploring, maybe she was focusing just on the statues she could see.

"Toph?" Katara calls, leaning in the doorway--

Just in time for the girl and the kiss and Zuko's outburst. This wasn't nearly enough time for either of them to think and Katara had been caught up with Toph, not thinking too much at all and now...

She'd like to turn around and retreat, but if he's already seen her...

[princeinexile]

High-wire tense, Zuko blinks and turns-- sharply, aggravated, and-- oh hey Katara. He blinks and then grumbles a little as he goes quiet and demands, "Next," as sulkily as he possibly can.

This time he's 8, being introduced to rhinos. He... looks very much like a tiny tasty snack, in his father's shadow, Ozai's shadow cast but the man not present in the scene.

"Next."

This is going to go on a while till he gets what he wants.

[allican-do.livejournal.com]

Sulky? But he's still letting her see.

Frowning a little, unsure, Katara doesn't come in but doesn't retreat either, staying still in the doorway as the pictures change. "...Do you want me to go?" she finally asks quietly, watching him but letting her eyes flicker to the pictures when they change. "You don't really seem to care what I see..."

Or maybe he doesn't care what any of them see - didn't he say he had no secrets?

[princeinexile]

He was trying to be brave.

"Father made me a spectacle before the entire royal army. Why should I care if you watch? At least your company is--" ... nice? tolerable? Uhm?

"... I don't really have a good word for that, so I'm not going to say anything else, okay?"

Because it will somehow fuck it up.

Now? The images continue to ripple -- like an out-of-order slide show -- Zuko's life, with an emphasis on his mental focus; Azula welcomes him with royal entourage, her lies glittering behind his eyes. He looks at her, wretchedly hopeful--

--but they all know that can't last.

"Next." A beat. "... I threw slop on my sister today."

[allican-do.livejournal.com]

Hope in his eyes - that one she looks at, dissects and wonders.

And blinks at him, smiling slowly. "I'll make one up," she offers and takes a small step into the room. This is for him and she doesn't want to upset the images.

But a moment later, she's blinking for an entirely different reason, shocked-- and terribly amused.

"You did? Really? ....Is there a picture of it?"

BECAUSE SHE TOTALLY WANTS TO SEE.

[princeinexile]

"No, I mean-- I did it today. PErhaps twenty minutes ago. I cannot abide being told I am a tool by a sword who doesn't know her sheath when she's shown it," Zuko says, and then gestures. It's okay if she comes very close! He'll just snarl and demand the machine show HIS IMAGES.

...or secretly watch hers.

"She'll be akin to a wet wolfcat for a while, but I'm sure we'll manage."

[allican-do.livejournal.com]

"No, I heard you, I just-- well, if Stacy's going to show all those images, I'd rather she show some great ones like that, too."

But he gestured! So in she comes, standing beside him. He's ordering the pictures, though, right? So it won't matter how close she is.

...Except that the image of Zuko and his father by the rhinos shifts to a tiny little Katara beside her own father, lifted up in the air and onto a penguin's back, grinning widely, limbs flailing.

Katara smiles but looks a little sad all the same, glancing over to Zuko. "There's not really a lot she can do. Stacy would just grab her and slam her against the wall like the rest of us."

[princeinexile]

Ut oh.

Happy child with loving attentive father. Zuko's like a sea at storm; a moment of dark calm, and then there's waves breaking on his face as he simply demands, "Next."

...yeah great okay this will get confusing. Because now he's bullying his grandmother. Zuko just groans and palms his face. NOT HIS FINEST MOMENT OKAY. BUT HE WANTED THE GODDAMN AVATAR.

[allican-do.livejournal.com]

The palm against his face calls Katara's gaze from the scowl she set on the picture to the smirk she gives Zuko now.

"Next," she says quietly and looks back to see.

A huge, glowing iceberg-- with a small boy inside, large eyes glowing blue.

Zuko doesn't know about this part, does he?

c

[princeinexile]

"...the hell is that?"

No, he didn't know about that part.

Re: c

[allican-do.livejournal.com]

...Oops.

Clearing her throat softly, suddenly awkward, Katara tries to figure out exactly how to say this.

"Well..."

It's a little difficult.

"Remember when I told you that Aang didn't-- want to be gone a hundred years?"

[princeinexile]

...

"He was in a chunk of ice. For a century?"

Yeah, that puts a damper on his 'you're a rage weenie coward' theory.

[allican-do.livejournal.com]

Nodding, Katara's expression falls when the pictures shifts - a cave and a harsh storm outside, she and Aang on either side of a campfire, Aang's face fallen as he tells a story, Katara all concern...

"He was twelve when they told him he was the Avatar. It was scary, but he was all right - there was a monk he was close to. But when they tried to take him away from his friend, to send him away, he... ran. He was a child and he was scared.

"There was a storm. Appa went down and the both of them were in trouble, drowning. The Avatar State happened automatically and he trapped them both in the ice. He wasn't freed until--"

A slow video, Katara grabbing her brother's club, staring at the ice and the boy inside, and then whacking at it with all she's worth, sending a spray of ice and air out while Sokka shielded her.

[princeinexile]

His ship could have run aground upon the Avatar. They could have crashed into him. It would have been hilarious!

Zuko isn't laughing.

[allican-do.livejournal.com]

Katara isn't either, a thought comes on her and she looks away before it can show--

--but there it is, Aang cowering before an angry Water Tribe girl, yelling in his face.

"Next."

[princeinexile]

Zuko's brow arches, but he says nothing-- looking away.

At it returned to him -- on the ship, when a ray of light pieces the sky; Iroh doesn't even look up, but Zuko is pointing, excited, hopeful--

--that's his redemption coloring the sky.

"You know, this could get very awkward. I know my life is mostly -- public ignomity, but... I'm sure you have things you don't want me to see..."

[allican-do.livejournal.com]

"You're sharing with me," she says, looking back as the picture changes, smiling a little, sadly at his hope. "I should do it back. Besides, there isn't much I wouldn't want you t--"

Up in the trees, a boy holding tight to a rope and the girl he holds tightly in his arms, smirking as she looks at him adoringly.

This is the sound of Katara's face meeting her palm.

"Maybe I'll just step back and let you go back to the picture you were looking for."

[princeinexile]

...!!

"You-- and-- that lunatic?"

WHY YES HE KNOWS JET WHY DID YOU ASK? Cause there they are, fighting by night in Ba Sing Se-- Zuko in his DARLING little apron, very nearly taking Jet's head off.

"Pain in the ass."

[allican-do.livejournal.com]

UH!!!

Staring wide-eyed at the new picture, Katara gapes quietly for a moment before turning sharply to Zuko. "You-- fought him? And-- no, we weren't-- I mean, yes, he's a lunatic!"

A fight in Ba Sing Sei bleeds to a crying Katara, Jet's hand on her face-- a quick movement and he's frozen to a tree, water beating at him again-- again-- again--

[princeinexile]

"Of course I fought him," Zuko says as if 'duh, he was a lunatic!' was obvious. "He was trying to get us arrested! And if the people are Ba Sing Se figured out that uncle was the Dragon of the West, who is the only general to ever penetrate the outter wall..."

And... hey. "Seems you two split poorly. I wonder if that was the bad thing he was supposedly going to be a changed, redeemed man from." He rolls his eyes. "He was just moving areas. Looking for a new gang to fight with. Asked me -- when he didn't think I was a firebender."

[allican-do.livejournal.com]

This new picture - that isn't changing yet - has Katara scowling, hiding from both the image and Zuko's gaze. "He tricked Aang and I into helping him... do something terrible. And he tried to have Sokka killed. When I did that... I thought he'd succeeded."

But the next image is one of Sokka grinning, waving as his captors hang from their own traps in the trees.

[princeinexile]

"Your brother can be clever." That's the only nice thing he will ever say. CLEVER. Like a HOGMONKEY is clever. "And that doesn't surprise me about Jet. He was clever, too-- but not right in the head."

[allican-do.livejournal.com]

"He had good intentions," she says quietly and takes a step back, letting the images return to Zuko. "But-- he wasn't right. He was too willing to do-- anything. We weren't."

[princeinexile]

"We had that in common," he says simply. THere they are, raiding the ferry's foodtores-- Zuko handling bowls of rice and vegtables on a blade, while Jet bagged prepared meat.

[allican-do.livejournal.com]

She would smile-- but the memory of his betrayal is all too fresh in her mind, still. It only lets some of the bitterness in her expression fade, watching him do good things.

"...I don't like being lied to."

In case he hadn't gotten that before. At least now he knows the why.