akaVertigo

~*X*~ How has it come to this? Back home In the Fire Nation magic is a privilege, a venerable discipline to respect, a sanctified prerogative. Here—it’s business. It’s fancy sport. It’s an exercise in gossip. It’s a petty exchange between a magician and Society, as if they were a maid and a fishmonger quibbling over a hunk of salmon! A spell to keep champagne fizzy in the punchbowl is thought an accomplishment!* However pitiable the modern condition of the Empire, at least its citizens still know to respect magical ability as a sacred legacy. But in this land—in this city—there is no pride, no heritage, n

~*X*~ What does it take to make a magician? Fortitude, Master Pakku would say (and often does, mulish old iceberg he is). Imagination is Master Iroh’s gentler recipe. A profound lack of sense has always been my brother’s opinion. Zuko has his own speculations, I’m sure—just as I am sure of my not wanting to hear them. But the truth is greatly less poetic. It takes money. It takes money to obtain a workroom, to outfit it with the necessary paraphernalia, to put oil in a beaker and ash on the grate.  It takes money to buy copies of the proper inscrutable ancient texts and transformations of their impenetrable contents

+accidents+ The accidents begin later than Iroh expects. First come the spills. A plague of incompetence sweeps over the house's pots and kettles; puddles of soup and wine and tea seem to cause a fall a day. The kitchen staff despairs over the likelihood of ever finding a sane container again until, suddenly, the spilling comes to an end as unexplainable as its beginning. Next comes the cold. This is a happier oddity and few seem to notice, though the cook does remark, with vague happy satisfaction, that the food storage is in especially fine condition despite the hotness of the season, and barrels of wine emerge from the cellar cold. But

+falling for the first time+ On the day prince Zuko, heir to the Fire Nation and future Fire Lord and Firebending Master, turns ten, he almost drowns. It is a rather stupid incident, really. One of his birthday gifts had been a custom suit of armor. The formal design of the armor meant that it was too bulky to be practical for real battle but it was real armor and the idea of letting go of something he has wanted for so long is not appealing. Usually, no child is required to spend a full day of ceremonies in a stifling cocoon of metal plating. Not even a prince. However, Zuko is more than a prince; Zuko is Zuko. His army of attendants, pain

Author Notes: Written according to the "alpha" set of 1sentence themes over on LiveJournal, but never posted to the community because nobody would get it. (And who could blame them?) Arc I TiaT: patterns of ink and metal: +flowers in the ashes+ +flowers in the ashes+ "The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself." –Gilbert Keith Chesterton #01 – Comfort After an evening in the company of his brother, Iroh is bone-achingly eager to welcome the company of his blue-eyed ward. #02 - Kiss Katara never holds his hand, not even when it's allowed and every scared lin

+cycles+ Summer: It is the season of heat, gold air and parched shadows, clogged streets and noise (though when is this city, jewel of the nation's crown, quiet? A silent fire is dead.) In this season lives danger, the risk of plague roaming overheated alleys and rooms, looking for a face to lick. Not surprising then, that Katara's first encounter with a Fire summer keeps her in bed and Iroh in worry. Often, he sits within her darkened room, waiting for each bout of dizziness and shivering to pass. During these periods, Katara jerks between trembling wakefulness and fevered dreaming—though it is a crime to call this dreaming; a dream sho

Tempest in a Teacup: Prologue +stars against the sun+ "She's awake." Iroh looks up from the map with its intertwined roads of water and land, and places that are not home, and stares at the ship doctor a moment before nodding. "Ah? Good. How is she feeling?" The medic, Shuang, shrugs with deferential casualness. He is a good man, a capable healer, and has been under Iroh's command for nearly twenty years. Iroh trusts his knowledge and opinion. In return, the doctor trusts Iroh's intuition and decisions. Even so, there's a tinge of unease on Shuang's thin face. "She didn't say. In fact, the child hasn't uttered a sound since opening her ey