Rating: K plus
Genre: Supernatural
Summary: Zuko can do some rather...unusual things. It's not the Firebending I'm talking about.
There was a pattern on the floor in front of him - a five-pointed star inside a pentagon inside a circle, the points of the star coinciding with the spots where the pentagram touched its surrounding circle. Phonetic runes lay in the spaces between lines, each element and combination given its own place on the ritual. He knew well the chemical combinations this ritual would start.
He should. He'd made it.
Slowly, he began to trace the ritual - starting, as always, at the aether point - in ink made from enchanted obsidian. Every magic or chemical item here he'd either gathered or enchanted himself, from the ink he was using to the various exotic Fire Nation forest plants in jars all around the study. He checked on each one habitually as he moved around the shapes in front of him, dipping his brush in the ink as he went to keep the ritual smooth and steady in form. Runes would come later - always the base, the star-inside-pentagon-inside-circle, first. Aether done, then down counterclockwise to fire, air, water, and earth, in their turns. Then the runes, based on sounds - strange, that. He'd always thought of language as a glyphic thing, but apparently there was more than one way to go about recording what people meant.
There. Done. There was the most writing at the fire and earth point, but some at the air point. All intentional.
Wouldn't the Gaang be surprised by his little fireworks.
This is my first flash fiction in the fandom, but I have about a billion on the Star Wars one. Just saying.