A/N: This is totally gift-fic for suzukiblu (on livejournal). A while back, (s)he came up with the idea for a waterbender!Zuko fic that I fell in love with... and then she came up with a firebender!Jet, which was also... 3. Anyway, both those ideas percolated for a bit, and then I couldn't help myself. If you're not familiar with suzukiblu's work, go check it out. Now.
This fic was, incidentally, inspired by the firebender!Jet meme, but is set in the waterbender!Zuko meme.
Waterbender!Zuko: http:/ community. livejournal. com/ white_knuckle / (remove spaces)
Firebender!Jet: http:/ community. livejournal. com/ white_knuckle / (remove spaces)
When I was born,
They looked a me and said
"What a good boy, what a smart boy
What a strong boy"
I wake up scared
I wake up strange... - What A Good Boy, Bare Naked Ladies
A Fire Nation woman. Lanook watched; invisible and dreaming; a ghost of – what? A past life waiting for hints of how to stop what was coming? A future that was, or might never be? An observer to the strange twists in his own, unknown, subconscious, perhaps. He was dreaming, after all. The woman was pregnant, Lanook figured out as the twins told her that she had to kill her baby. Her head jerked up, and her jaw clenched, and then her eyes returned to gazing at the tea in the fine china in her hands.
Lannok wondered what any of this had to do with him.
She flung the tea in the twins' faces and fled, and then she was on the ocean – one arm clutching the railing of the ship, and the other wrapped around her stomach. The storm flung rain and hail in her face, and she squinted her eyes rather than move either of her arms to protect them. She should be below decks, Lanook couldn't help but think. Why isn't she?
The ship bucked and heaved in the waves, and she clung harder to the rails. Winter storm, Lanook realized. They come up so suddenly... he whispered.
Lightning crackled and her mouth opened in a scream that was abruptly silenced when thunder answered in a sharp retort long seconds later. The water around where the light had struck – miles away, surely, though Lanook didn't have enough of a head for numbers to spend time figuring it out– glowed blue. The blue spread, closer and closer to the ship.
Water conducts electricity, Lanook thought, and watched a sailor in the Fire Nation's metal armour race to jerk the woman away from the railing and down below decks. He failed, though he managed to pull her from where she clung to the railing. Electricity raced along the railing she'd been clinging to, along the metal plating she'd been walking on. Lanook tried to close his eyes to what happened next, but his eyes were already closed because this was a dream and there was no hiding from what he was being shown.
The Fire Nation men... everyone in armour... fried. Nausea forced bile up this throat, even though Lanook couldn't hear the screams, or smell the burning flesh. He could see how ripples of light danced along the red and black metal, the white face plates, how limbs jerked and danced in time. The woman stood on the metal plating of the deck, and swept her hands from pointing at her feet to pointing in opposite directions and shot lightning through her fingertips. Her expression was so tight, Lanook couldn't help but pity her. But she was in the middle of the ocean. She was facing her death, and she was, what? Bending? Why?
For her child's life, came the answer, though Lanook couldn't say who provided it. Himself, the red man – strangely absent – the sun, or the moon. Her mouth was moving in prayer.
Why... why are you showing me this? He was no surer whom he was asking. The sun stared down at the scene impassively from behind the clouds, and snow swirled and the ocean crashed over the deck and swallowed her lightning and her; held her away from the ship as the sparks reached the engine room and the ship burst into flame. The ocean took that too, down to the depths, and anyone still living with it. Except for the woman. She floated to the surface, cradled by the water, and pulled to shore. She was conscious, but not struggling against the ocean's currents, and Lanook watched as the water pulled her over the riptides and up onto the icy, pebbled shore. She stood, shivering, and fire licked out from between her lips, warming herself, and stumbled off. Lanook knew that shore, knew those waters, and the ice fields she was heading for. He knew this place; it was less than a day's travel from the village and Lanook smiled despite himself. The fire nation woman would be alright. Wouldn't she?
She wasn't. She stumbled around without sleep or food for days, because her legs weren't working correctly and she didn't know the way. The fire in her mouth petered out until it was barely steam, and she pled with the spirits, her ancestors, anyone to help. Lanook's heart clenched and the foreboding feeling in his stomach left him breathing shallowly. He didn't want to watch her die; he didn't want to keep watching.
WHY ARE YOU SHOWING ME THIS? He shouted at the sky, at the moon and the sun, and the stars that the Fire Nation woman was saying were all wrong, while she clutched at her stomach, fist pressed just under her bulging curve.
Look, came the reply from the moon as she turned into Yue, falling gracefully to watch the woman with him. Two figured appeared in the distance.
No, he said. No no no no no, it's... it can't be. But it was. His father, and Bato, and they dragged the woman home, and his mother cut the baby out of the woman's stomach and gave birth herself. No no no no. That's not the way it happened. Mom gave birth to both of us.
Are you sure? The red man, on his other side.
Of course, except that he wasn't.
Yue gave him a sympathetic glance. I always knew that I would have to give it back; you didn't.
What do you mean? Suddenly he was afraid, not sure was she was talking about, but suspecting, and knowing that he wouldn't like it, whatever it was.
The energy. La gave up a lot to save your mother. To save you. He needs it back, now. Destroying the Fire Nation navy... took too much. She was joined by a dark figure, whose face he couldn't quite make out, when he turned to face them. The red man's hands landed on his shoulders.
This will hurt, he murmured.
Oh, was all he could think to say, and something pulled at his core, and water flowed from his mouth, and eyes, and chest. It left him in torrents, and he thought, this isn't really painful. But then it was, and he tried to stay silent; failed, choking on screams, while the dark figure began to look more and more like him.
The red man's hands left his shoulders and as the last of the water left him, hands slammed into his spine and BREATHE! And Lanook burned.
Tuikka wakes when he hears Lanook's incoherent mumbling. "No" it sounds like, repeated over and over, and Tuikka reaches over, and mutters "C'mere", still half asleep. But Lanook doesn't, and as Tuikka slowly wakes up, he realizes that for once, he's beaten the end of Lanook's nightmare. He rolls onto his side, sinking a little into the sandy beach and puts a hand on Lanook's shoulder.
But Lanook still doesn't wake. He's too hot, as well, running a fever. Tuikka frowns, and sits up. Lanook rolls over, away from him, and Tuikka tries shaking him a little. Lanook's brow contracts into a confused frown, and Tuikka thinks for a second that it's worked.
Lanook seizes, legs kicking out. Tuikka changes his grip to pin his twin to the ground. "Katara!" he shouts, and she wakes with a start, blinking owlishly at him until she – always more of a morning person than he - catches onto what's happening, and reaches for the water in the ocean, coating Lanook's torso with blue-glowing healing water. His legs are jerking too wildly.
The water gets cloudy as the water pressed against Lanook's overheated skin becomes steam, and rises to the surface. "He's too hot!" Tuikka says. "What's happening?" he shouts without meaning to, hands immersed in ice-cold water where he's still trying to keep Lanook from breaking a limb. Aang wakes up and that just makes it all worse, because he wants to know what's going on, and neither sibling has an answer.
Finally, precious seconds later, he adds his efforts to Katara's, even though – "I've never healed before." "Well, you can't make things worse!" Tuikka announces.
He doesn't. Part of that is due to the way Lanook accidentally kicks him across the clearing. Tuikka tries to pin those down, but now his chest is free to jerk all it wants, and "He's gonna break his neck!" Katara yells. Aang pins down his shoulder, and Sokka pins down his legs, and Katara jerks more water from the ocean to cool him down.
He stops breathing, and Katara screams. "No!" Tuikka feels like the word is torn out of his chest even as the rest of his body goes slack, because Lanook's not shaking anymore, and Aang shakes at Lanook's shoulders. "Lanook! Breathe!"
And Lanook does. He sucks in one gasping inhalation. His mouth opens wide, and as if he needs help, Aang presses down on his chest.
Lanook screams.
Fire pours out of his mouth.