Set your mp3/media library to shuffle and write ten drabbles inspired by ten songs. You have only till the end of the song to finish your drabble.
Notes: I always knew before that I found Azula to be an incredibly fascinating character, but I'd never written about her before. I will definitely be doing more of that now. Also, the Toph/Zuko Mischief Managed one: The song is like nine minutes long, which is why it's so long.
The Leaving Song Pt 2 – AFI
Azula, Zuko
She looked up at him. Perhaps looked was the wrong word, as her stare was something beyond looking. What used to be a hard glare was now wide-eyed and psychotic, seeing things that weren't there.
"I might."
She knew. She knew where mother was, and knowing Azula, he'd have to somehow make a trade, one more in her favor.
"What do you want…?" He didn't want to give her anything, but…
The blank golden stare hardened to a metal he could hardly define. "What do I want? Oh, that's rich, Zuzu. You who have everything I wanted, everything I once had. I want power and freedom, I want to rule, I want to destroy. I want control. I want you dead, and the avatar killed for what he did to father. The real question is: how bad do you want this?"
He didn't know.
Zar Und Zimmerman: Holzschuhtanz
Mai/Zuko
God, was there anything about being firelady that wasn't boring? Meetings, socials, and the opera.
Not that she didn't like the opera. It was soothing, and her parents had taught her a long time ago to treasure opportunities to show off how cultured she was.
But she really wanted to just be with Zuko, make fun of the people they'd been forced into company with.
She gave a heavy sigh and leaned forward to see what was now going on, and a hand landed softly but hot on her thigh. She looked left peripherally, and noticed a slanted smile and soft golden eyes
Maybe it was worth it.
Astral Romance – Nightwish
Sokka/Yue, Sokka/Suki
Yue was something he's had to leave behind. Never forgotten, his love affair with the moon, the first girl he'd ever kissed, ever loved. She still haunts his dreams, and sometimes when he wakes up with Suki's skin warm next to him he has to remember who she is, remember it's not her.
And it won't be.
Looking up at the stars at night and watching the full moon has to be enough. While Katara feels her power during this time, Sokka can just feel her. Her arms around him, her lips chaste upon his forehead. He knows she wants him to move forward, but it's hard knowing that what could have been the love of his life had to die.
Suki's as understanding as she can be, while not aware of the whole story. She lets him have his moonlight vigils, waking to a cold side of the bed on the nights of a full moon, but the soft light is often all he can have from the princess, and it is not enough.
Downtown Train – Tom Waits
Aang/Katara
It's been awhile since the Avatar has even seen Katara. Long enough for it to ache within him, and for everything to build up against a damn that is not far from breaking.
He finally can go see her tonight. He's found her after this time; finally back to their house, the windows and hallways he knows so well, too well after mapping them in his head for all this time.
He enters through their door, to their house, and finally sees her.
Her soft blue eyes twinkling up at him, her hair loose, her soft smell, the scent of warm rain in the spring wafting towards him.
Her hand on her belly…
"Oh, Katara," and he enveloped her in his arms.
Escape – Muse
Azula
Azula lies. She doesn't do it without reason, though. She has issues, but she's not stupid enough to think they aren't there. She's cunning, and she realizes that some part of her is broken, that she won't be able to fix it by herself if she can fix it at all.
She can't. She knows.
She needs her parents love. What she gets is a twisted form of admiration from Ozai, his perfect and ruthless daughter. From her mother she gets fear and anger at hurting precious Zuzu.
Like she's never been hurt. Azula just learned to hold that in, to hide it from those around her. It wasn't their business. Not even the mother who couldn't even love her. Not even the father whose desire for her to be perfect had driven her to this. She didn't care. She never would, never could. Not again.
And that's where she's broken. But instead of fixing herself, she'll thinks she'll break the world, and anyone who tries to get in her way, and they'll be broken together.
This Place is a Prison – The Postal Service
Zuko
He sees the society people, those around him with their shark smiles watching him with dark, slanting eyes, waiting for him to fail. Then they'll say he's too like his father, and didn't his sister go insane? They are of the same stock, you know. And he'll hear it whether they say it or not. But he's stuck here, stuck by the honor he'd tried for so long to finally restore, not thinking about the consequences of getting it back.
And what he really needs is a drink and time alone to think and release these things, but if he does people will talk, and he will never hear the end of it. And if he has to bottle everything up and keep the smile painted across his face, he will, because it's better than the alternative, watching his nation be torn apart by those around him.
Mischief Managed – HP Theme
Toph/Zuko, mentioned Mai/Ty Lee
Toph snorts. She knows that she shouldn't be getting in trouble, especially not as a delegate, and not in the Firelord's court, but the rum was there, and it calls to her, she swears it does.
Sometimes it calls to Zuko, too.
So when she wakes up to find her clothes in ashes and herself in the Firelord's (large, majestic, royal) bed, she doesn't blame herself. Or Zuko.
She blames the rum, which talked her into this and somehow convinced her it would be a good idea.
As her memories come crawling back to her, dragging their feet like she will as soon as she gets up, she laughs. Softly, so as not to wake Sparky next to her, but she can't stop a few giggles. She probably shouldn't have danced with Zuko while Mai was still around (and she thanked her lucky stars that she hadn't danced with him while they were together, because that would have made things awkward… More awkward.) It was alright, because she seemed to notice Mai turning often to follow the bouncing, but no longer pink warrior of Kyoshi… But anyhow, Toph Bei Fong knew how to dance, and she knew how to dance to drive a man crazy.
She could thank her mother and her lessons for one thing, she guesses.
She also knew how much liquor it would take for Zuko to let loose enough to dance at all. He would do the ceremonial ones, but anything fun he would sit out. It was so like Zuko, he never had enough fun.
He groaned next to her and she grinned and cuddled up against him, pretending to be asleep.
And he shrieked. Like a girl.
"God, Princess, it's early. Go back to bed."
"What are you doing here?!" Zuko cried, pulling the sheets up around himself and thus exposing more of her to light. She stretched, seemingly unaware of her own nudity and grinned.
"You mean you don't remember?" A small but calloused finger dances up and down his chest and she bet if she could see, he'd be following it with panicked eyes.
There was no answer, for the Firelord's mind was busy trying to process what his eyes saw.
"You're naked."
She laughed, lifting his sheet up and a small hand travelling down and down and further down till she stopped moving and he gave a royal squeak. "You are too, Princess."
"Why?"
She just laughed raucously. "My guess is it'll take awhile to explain, so how about I just show you?"
And that was that.
Disaster- Homegrown
Mai/Zuko
Perhaps it was because they'd loved each other since they were children. Or the pressure of him having to be Firelord.
"Maybe we just weren't meant to be, Zuko."
He had no answer for that. It seemed obvious to him. How could they not be meant to be. This was the worst possible thing. He believed in fate, in their fate.
"I'm sorry."
She was everything that the firelady should be, and on top of that, he loved her.
"Will you come back?"
Her eyes softened, and she shook her head. "Maybe some day. A long time from now. Maybe." Her eyes still said probably not. "I won't give you false hope. This isn't going to work, Zuko."
Take A Bow – Muse
Azula, Zuko
Everything Azula touched was dirty. It was almost as if there was ink seeping from her fingers, polluting everything good. She polluted Mai and Ty Lee, she polluted the fire nation.
And Zuko wanted her to burn for it. There was still some small part that recognized his sister in it all, but most of her was gone, polluted by this desire for power over people and the ability to give and take their freedom.
He wouldn't burn her. She was his sister. But, even after the war. Everything she had touched was tainted somehow. Wrong. He had to burn her rooms in the palace to a crisp before he could get any of the blood out. He had to burn her clothes, however nice they were, burning her vicariously through it, from his life.
Because he was tainted, too.
I'll Never Fall In Love – Homegrown
Sokka/Suki, Sokka/Yue, one-sided Sokka/Toph, Aang/Katara
The Blind Bandit thinks of love.
She thinks it's stupid. She watches Aang become more vulnerable because of Katara, and vice-versa and worries about how that will affect their battles. And she watches Sokka moon over… well, the moon. And then worry and get distracted from their mission over Suki.
She watches herself watching Sokka more closely, and watches her fight tend to fail, worrying about his safety. Watches Sokka, happy with someone else, who is actually likable enough that even Toph, who would be her opposition (or might have wanted to) doesn't seem to mind her.
And she thinks it's stupid. Not worth it. She can't stop herself, because it's too late.
But she'll never fall in love again.
Hearshot Kid Disaster – Coheed and Cambria
Ty Lee, Azula
Ty Lee often wonders if she's doing the right thing. She's a follower, not a leader, and Azula is a leader and her friend.
But she's also a little crazy. And violent.
And not very nice.
Ty Lee wonders if she is crazy by association. She has faith in Azula, doesn't she? She thinks Azula is doing the right thing, and that having the fire nation in power would be easier, doesn't she?
But it hurts, hurts her heart which is not as up to following Azula as her mind. So she'll stick around until she can figure it out, waits for her faith to be restored.