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Separation V
Title: Separation
Rating: PG-13 for language
Genre: Crossover fusion
Fandoms: Avatar: The Last Airbender and His Dark Materials
Timeline: Season One, immediately following 1x09, The Waterbending Scroll
Summary: Returning to his ship after the fiasco with the pirates, Prince Zuko stumbles across the body of a boy in the river. Quickly it is determined that the boy is alive, but that something is terribly wrong...
Warning: Inspired in part by avocado_love's Inner Nature but completely different from her story, I promise you. Original characters, who will be familiar faces for those of you who've kept up with my other works. Some foul language.
I | II | III | IV
V
"Look down there!" cried Sokka, pointing. Katara obeyed, thinking maybe her brother had found a place to camp. Instead, she could see someone facing off against four men — earthbenders, she realised as one of them launched a boulder at the lone figure.
"That isn't fair," observed Siku as the figure dodged. "Four against one—"
Blue flame arced between the attacked figure's hands, which it then launched at the earthbenders. "…Never mind," the rabbitswan dæmon finished.
Curious, Ishiko looked over the side as well — then cried, "'Chiro!" and launched herself over the saddle.
"Wait!" Asia cried, lunging for the lone dæmon, but Ishiko had taken the form of a messenger hawk and thrown herself into a dive; Asia scrambled to take a bird form herself and gave chase.
"She must have recognised one of the soldiers," Akiak reasoned.
"Then let's give them a hand," Aang declared, opening his glider and following his dæmon down. To his surprise, both birds flew past the fight and down the river; below them, the firebender dodged another flying rock and was without warning fighting hand to hand among the earthbenders. Pale hands flew before the men or their dæmons could react: an elbow to the face, a fist to the gut, a boot to the head, and a headbutt later, the earthbenders had fallen, knocked unconscious.
The firebender was breathing hard but grinning lopsidedly, an expression that abruptly vanished when Aang caught him with a blast of air, knocking him sideways. The firebender — Aang could now see that he was young, maybe Zuko's age, and very, very shirtless — had the reflexes of a lemur, and was already rolling as he hit the ground. He was on his feet just in time to dodge a second blast of air. "What's your problem?" he yelped, settling into a combative stance.
Then his dæmon scrambled from the grass up his pants leg and bare flesh to his shoulder. "That's the Avatar!" she cried.
Aang saw the firebender's eyes fly wide, then he breathed, "Fuck me," a pair of words Aang actually hadn't heard strung together before. The Avatar braced himself as fire flared — up and high in front of the older boy, forming a shield of bright blue flames. Aang could feel the heat of it across the yards separating them.
Beyond the fire, however, he heard a yelp and a thud — Sokka and Katara had joined the fray. "Get off me!" the firebender cried, then water from the stream doused the fire wall. Aang immediately crossed the divide of scorched grass as Katara turned her attention to freezing the firebender to the ground with ice bonds. Akiak crouched nearby, holding down the beaded mongoose dæmon; even as she struggled against the arctic wolf, the firebender strained against Katara's ice.
"Where's Asia?" Katara asked him.
"I don't know," Aang replied. "She went off after—"
"Stop that!" Sokka interrupted, prodding the firebender with his toe. Katara and Aang looked over to see the ice almost gone and puddles of water dripping off his wrists and boots. Katara moved to freeze him down again, but it was already too late — her brother yelped as the firebender's long legs swept under his, dumping him onto his back. His cry was echoed by Akiak, who had just earned a hard bite from her prisoner.
Then the older boy was on his feet, pushing blue fire at Katara and Aang and forcing them to leap apart. However, Sokka was almost as quick and thus threw himself onto the firebender's back, driving him down. The shirtless boy yelled, reaching back and getting a good grip on Sokka's shirt. He tried to haul the Water Tribesman over his shoulder, but was in a poor position to pull the manoeuvre off; they tumbled to one side, wrestling for dominance.
Neither Katara nor Aang could intervene; the boys were so close together that they risked hitting Sokka. Siku, however, could and did help Akiak against the firebender's dæmon. Even then, however, the two of them were having problems: the beaded mongoose was fast and fearless, scrambling onto the arctic wolf's back to avoid a blow from Siku's wings.
The firebender had managed to pin Sokka for a few brief moments, but despite his superior strength, the Water Tribesman had more experience with close-quarters combat. In a move so swift Katara and Aang weren't quite sure what had happened, Sokka had rolled them both over and was suddenly pinning the firebender down. Before he could react, the warrior grabbed his boomerang from its holster and pressed the sharp end against his opponent's throat.
At the same time, Akiak caught the firebender's dæmon in her jaws, which she closed just tight enough to put the smaller creature in serious discomfort. Silence fell, broken only by the heavy breathing of the combatants. The firebender's was more laboured, given that Sokka was now sitting on his stomach.
Hot golden eyes bored ferociously into Sokka's. "Get off of me!" he snarled.
"No." Sokka looked up at his companions. "What do we do with him?"
"Uh…," Aang said, frowning. They hadn't really thought this one through. "I guess… give him over to the earthbenders when they wake up?"
"They started it!" yelled the firebender's dæmon. "We were just mindin' our own business and—"
"Do you expect us to believe that?" Sokka snapped at her. "You're Fire Nation."
His prisoner spat in his face. "Take that back!"
Aang and Katara shared a surprised look as Sokka cried out in disgust. The firebender sounded insulted by Sokka's words. What was going on?
Before anyone could speak, Asia came flying back. To everyone's surprise, she arrowed directly into Akiak, changing form right before impact into another arctic wolf. Sokka's dæmon yelped, and the beaded mongoose flew through the air only to be caught by a small dragon.
The firebender's eyes went wide. "Ishiko?!"
"Ichiro!" This cry came from a little girl, maybe two years younger than Aang, who tried to run to the downed firebender.
Katara caught and held her back, and the beaded mongoose yelled, "Yui!"
The girl's eyes snapped to the sky, and her minksnake dæmon raised his head from her shoulder. "Mei Lei!"
"Knock it off!" yelled Sokka, already annoyed by the sudden introduction of far too many names. "Asia, stop that!" The Avatar's dæmon was trying to drive him off the firebender without actually touching him, flying at his face again and again and pulling up at the last minute.
"Please, stop!" cried Ishiko, landing carefully and releasing the beaded mongoose who was presumably Mei Lei. "Leave him alone!"
"What's going on?" Katara asked, still keeping hold of the girl.
She was nearly drowned out by the firebender yelling again, "Get off of me!"
Sokka ignored him, flailing at Asia and now Ishiko with one arm, trying to get the dæmons to stop diving at his head. He leaned back, taking his boomerang from the firebender's throat; without warning the older boy placed his palms flat on the ground to brace himself and arched his back, throwing Sokka off. He scrambled to his feet, and Asia and Ishiko landed in front of him, both in a dragon shape now, as large as they could get.
"What are you two doing?" Sokka demanded.
"These are Yui and Ichiro," Ishiko replied. "Kouji's siblings."
Ichiro looked down at the solitary dæmon. "You haven't found him yet?" he asked quietly. Shaking her head, the dæmon took on the form of a small badgermole with grey fur. The firebender's beaded mongoose dæmon — Mei Lei, she must have been, the minksnake would be male, after all — rubbed against Ishiko, trying to comfort her. Siku waddled over and, ignoring the hiss from Mei Lei, started to gently preen the lone demon.
Katara released the girl Yui, who promptly joined her brother. Now that they weren't distracted by shock, Katara, Sokka, and Aang could see that the two of them strongly resembled each other, though the girl's face was a bit rounder than her brother's, her eyes more like amber than Ichiro's gold. "So… what was that all about with the earthbenders, then?" Aang asked.
Ichiro ran a hand through his short, spiky hair. "That was kind of my fault. I wanted some hot water to dump on me, so I firebent the water I'd got from the stream, and they took offence."
"You're a firebender," Sokka said, his voice just on this side of hostile. He poked a finger at the older boy's bare chest. "Why'd you get so mad when I called you what you are?"
Ichiro batted the Water Tribesman's hand away. "Stop that. And I got mad because I hate the Fire Nation."
The three children shared a look of confusion, and Yui's minksnake dæmon sighed. "Look. We're colonists, all right?" He uncoiled from her neck and slithered down her arm, resting his head on the back of her hand. "Born 'n bred, in the case of the twins."
"I still say I count, since we left the Fire Nation when I was two," Ichiro added, taking a seat cross-legged. "But this isn't about me."
"Ishiko, how much did you tell them?" the minksnake asked.
She changed from a badgermole to a hedgepuppy and settled down underneath Siku's wing as Akiak came trotting up, cloth in her mouth. She dumped it into Ichiro's lap while the lone dæmon said, "I… I didn't mention that…"
"Mention what?" Aang asked curiously.
Ichiro exchanged a look with Yui as he pulled the cloth — his shirt, it would seem — on over his head. "Near as we can figure, it's pretty much why Kouji was attacked," the firebender told them. "You guys saw what I am. Easy enough to explain, I was born on the summer solstice in the Fire Nation."
"But Kouji and I were born in the spring in the Earth Kingdom," Yui picked up. "I'm no bender, but Kouji…"
"Is an earthbender," Ishiko finished.
The two Water Tribe siblings stared at the Fire Nation pair, but Aang nodded. "Oh, I guess that would make sense. I mean, I've never heard of it happening before, but…"
"Well, someone in our colony took offence to that," said the minksnake. "We all tried to hide it, but…"
Ichiro shook his head, and all of a sudden appeared haunted. "Kouji was found out and nearly murdered. I tried to save him." He bowed his head, and Yui hugged him tightly. "I didn't — there was a storm the night before. I didn't think the river would be moving so fast…"
Mei Lei took over. "There wasn't enough time for Ichiro to use his bending. He pushed Kouji into the river to put the fire out. The river swept him away before I could free Ishiko."
To the surprise of all, now Katara knelt by the firebender, putting her arms around him. While Sokka sputtered, she said, "It's all right, Ichiro. It isn't your fault."
Ichiro looked absolutely startled. "I… what?"
"She's right," Siku agreed. "It isn't your fault. You acted to save your brother. Any of us," and he spoke only for the dæmons right now, "would have released Ishiko as soon as the boy hit the water." Akiak and Asia nodded agreement.
"So you're looking for Kouji too?" Aang asked.
"Not… quite," Yui said. "We're catching up to him."
This earned her some boggled looks.
"It's some kind of freaky twin thing," Ichiro said. "Kouji and Yui can always find the other one. I don't get it."
"That is freaky," said Sokka. Then he remembered he didn't like Ichiro, and glared.
Ichiro ignored him.
"I've got it!" said Aang eagerly. All eyes turned to him. "We can help! I've got a flying bison. Won't that get you to your brother faster?"
Yui's eyes lit up. "You'd do that for us? Even though…"
"Of course we would," Katara assured her. "It's obvious that your brother needs help." And isn't likely to get it from the Fire Nation, she didn't add.
The little girl's eyes welled up with tears, and she threw herself at Aang. "Thank you!"
Somewhat awkwardly, and quite red-faced, Aang hugged her back. "Glad to do it."
Current Location: my bed
Current Mood:  contemplative
Tags: character: aang, character: ichiro, character: katara, character: sokka, character: yui, crossover, fandom: avatar, fandom: his dark materials, story: separation
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