Katara Doesn't Like Being Woken Up: A Drabblelike Zutara Duo
Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender. If I did, you may be assured Zuko would be less dense (heck, he has nowhere to go but up) and people would LISTEN to Iroh instead of dismissing it all as the ramblings of an old, more-than-slightly-eccentric man. But I don't own Avatar, so Zuko is still stupid and Iroh still ignored. Alas.
Note: The term "drabble" is severely misused. A drabble, by definition, is a very short story of exactly one hundred words. No more, no less. One hundred. There are variations resting on the following hundreds (drubble, tribble, quabble, quibble, in that order) up to five hundred. Anything that doesn't fall on those isn't a drabble or one of the other types. Anything over 500 words is a ficlet. This series will be made of stories of the first five types. I won't post individually (I'll wait until I have two or three that make sense together) and I don't have a continuous story line as of yet for the collection. They're just what come to my mind, if anything comes at all.
Melons, Also Entitled Things Zuko Would Never Do: A Quibble
A quibble is exactly five hundred words. This word count was done with MS Word.
Challenge: See if you can come up with what Number One is. I'm starting small with my challenges, so it's not that difficult.
"Here you are, Zuko!" Azula was ecstatic. She'd been searching for her long-lost brother for the last five years (she was on the run now, though she preferred to call it "traveling") and she finally found him in a tiny Earth-Kingdom village on a farm. The thought of her brother farming was just weird. In fact, farming had been Thing Zuko Would Never Do Number Three, which is what made it so odd to her. Not that she had ever considered it a possibility. But here they were, standing in what appeared to be a backyard garden.
"Would you mind getting off my melons?" he asked calmly as he leaned against the earthen wall of the house, which infuriated Azula even more. He cared about plants! Impossible. But there couldn't be that many males of around his age with scars like that; it had to be her brother.
Azula recovered quickly. Stepping out onto the path (squashing a few melon seedlings in the process) she smirked tauntingly. "So you're grubbing around in the dirt now, are you? Must be nice to meet your equals."
The old Zuko would have shot a fistful of fire at her. This new Zuko merely shrugged. "I'm not good at it, really. I wouldn't call the other farmers my equals."
Azula nearly fell over in shock. Zuko, her brother, the crazy, prideful prince, had just admitted he wasn't the best? That was Thing Zuko Would Never Do Number Two. Something was just plain wrong with her brother, and whatever it was, it made her angry.
Needless to say, Azula exploded. "What are you? Are you a Son of Fire or not? Forget I asked, you're nothing but a worm, and that's an insult to worms!"
If this had continued, something very nasty and destructive might have happened to the poor melons. However, the Melon Spirit was in that particular area and decided to have pity on her poor children to save them from angry princesses. Thinking quickly, she did the only thing she could come up with to distract them.
The sound of the gentle moans of someone getting up and stretching came from within the house. Azula froze, getting a very, very bad feeling—one of those types of feelings where you know something you fervently wish you didn't and know you're going to get confirmation. Unfortunately for Azula, her gut feelings were almost always right. However, her gut feelings weren't always quite on target. In fact, had she considered the truth, she'd probably be doubled over in pain at the thought.
"Zuko? Can you and your guest please keep it down; I'm trying to take a nap." The woman was rubbing her eyes as she stepped right outside the door. Azula stared to take in the sight. Mahogany skin. Brown hair. Blue necklace. And… Agni, no…
"I'm out of here, Zuzu. You just scare me." Azula turned around and hightailed it out of the village.
She was too young to be an aunt.
Fire Lord: A Drubble
A drubble is exactly two hundred words. Count was done in MS Word.
"Uncle, I won't do it, and that's final!"
"I'm old, Zuko. I don't have the strength left to lead a country," the old general protested from his seat on the bench.
"But you were supposed to lead the country. And in case you haven't forgotten, I received only two years of instruction on how to rule, and most of it was military. I don't know a thing about economics or foreign policy or any of those things a ruler needs to know." Zuko paced the long patch of garden that was once his mother's haven.
"You are young. You can learn."
"I don't have time to learn, Uncle! The Nation needs a ruler now and I can't and won't do it. That leaves you."
"What are you arguing about?" Katara rounded the corner.
"Zuko thinks-"
"Uncle says-"
"Okay, quiet!" she interrupted.
"Iroh," she pointed to him. "You get to be Fire Lord. No ifs, ands, or buts. Zuko's seventeen and no one over twenty will listen to him."
"Zuko," she pointed again. "You'd best start studying. Learn how to do the job."
"And both of you," she said as she retreated, "don't argue when I'm trying to take a nap."
Constructive criticism is always welcome. I'm here to improve my writing, not my ego!