ZW 2009 Day 7: Lick
.
.
.
Wherein Eva takes a break from writing anything remotely serious. This is decidedly crackish.
.
.
.
Zuko Hates Everything
Zuko hates everything. There he was, minding his own business, when suddenly he walked into a giant glowing thing. Now he's fat and hairy, and he's pretty sure he has a tail.
Zuko hates everything. He's not sure what happened, but the last thing he remembers was stomping toward a weird glow in the middle of the Earth Kingdom. Come to think of it, he must have been stomping toward it because the Avatar was headed that way. Zuko lifts a paw to smooth back his ponytail when he realizes something crucial: He has a paw.
"Uncle!" Uncle is nowhere to be found. Zuko cranes his neck and tries to look back at the light. To his dismay, all he sees is a flash and a doddering old tortoise turkey. "Uncle?"
"Ah, Prince Zuko, I was wondering where you went." The tortoise turkey cocks its head, and its gray beard (gobbler?) quivers with repressed laughter. "You do make a handsome platypus bear."
Zuko growls. "We need to get out of here."
Uncle the tortoise turkey chortles. "One does not simply leave the Spirit World, Platypus-Bear Zuko."
Zuko fumes. He thinks if he were in the real world, smoke would be coming out of his bill. Except that smoke is coming out of his bill, and he's suddenly feeling rather warm (clearly, platypus bears are not born firebenders). But if he's in the Spirit World…
Zuko gives up trying to figure out the rules of this place. It's exactly how he imagined the Spirit World would be; there are dark clouds swirling around him, but somehow the space directly above Uncle's head is bright and sunny. It's humid, and Zuko thinks that with his luck it's likely to start raining any moment. Dust clouds puff up in the distance, followed by loud booms. A blue platypus bear thunders down a hill toward him, roaring loudly.
"Uncle?"
The tortoise turkey's eyes are as large as saucers. "I think she's running at you, Prince Zuko."
Uncle proves to be correct. The giant blue platypus bear slams into Zuko and both of them tumble to the ground. "Hey! Watch it!"
The blue platypus bear throws ice at his head (where did she get ice?) and glares at him. Zuko glares back. Uncle drags himself over to them as best a tortoise turkey can. "Who'd like some hot, jasmine tea?"
"Uncle! There's no tea here!"
Uncle lifts one eyebrow (it's strange to see a turkey head with large, bushy eyebrows). "Look under your tail, Nephew."
Zuko bends down and looks between his legs. To his astonishment, there's a large, red egg under his tail that randomly splits open. The top seems to jump out, the sides fall off, and suddenly there's a full tea set with tea and strange looking cookies. He looks at the tortoise turkey for help. Said tortoise turkey crawls toward him and motions him out of the way. Zuko narrowly misses tipping everything over as he steps out of the way. Being a platypus bear is hard, and Zuko hates everything.
He hears a giggle from the blue platypus bear. "What's your problem?"
The giggling stops. "What's your problem?"
Zuko stomps his foot. Uncle shrieks at the nearly spilled tea. "What do you want?"
The other platypus bear spins around, narrowly missing him with her tail. "I don't know. You're the enemy."
"I am?"
She shrugs. "I think so."
"Oh. Sorry." He scratches the back of his neck nervously.
Apparently it's enough of an apology for her because she flip flops her large, webbed feet over to him and opens her mouth. Zuko looks at her. She licks him.
Zuko jumps back, hollering profanities and narrowly missing the tea set (again). "Why would you lick me?!"
She looks at him, dumbfounded. "My saliva has special properties. I didn't know if it would work, but I thought it might heal your scar."
Briefly, Zuko wonders what platypus bear with a scar looks like. Is he missing hair over one eye? He looks down, hoping a mirror will show up because now he's curious (and apparently this weird Not-Spirit World can read his mind because a pond forms under his feet and Zuko can see that he has a very handsome bear head. Naturally, he then falls into the pond and is summarily soaked.
…
Zuko jerks awake, flailing in his sheets. It was all a dream. He doesn't have a bill. And he's not horribly indebted to a polar platypus bear whose eyes look suspiciously like that Water Tribe girl's. Thank everything good and lucky in this world. He hates everything, but if he were actually turned into a platypus bear and beholden to a peasant, he would hate everything tenfold. Just the same, she was attractive, for a platypus bear.
…
A/N: dedicated to t-rex989, who requested quite some time ago that I do the Avatar characters as animals. This isn't quite what we envisioned at the time, but the story decided it had a mind of its own (as it does). I'll likely give the subject another go when I'm feeling more serious. It's a little crack-fic-ish, but I feel like this collection needs that. Love to reviewers :)
