Confession: I Still Struggle To Pronounce Like 40% Of Monsters Names.

Confession: I still struggle to pronounce like 40% of monsters’ names.

*on the Day of Black Sun*

Ozai: Why wait? You have your swords and I’m defenseless. You could just kill me now.

Zuko:…

Zuko: Shit, you right.

Ozai: WAIT NO

Is…is it possible to cut off a monster’s tail, and then get stuck underneath it?

I was playing GU and hunting a Rathalos, and when I cut it’s tail off, it fell on me and then I couldn’t get up for a few seconds. The red gauge for being pinned by a monster didn’t show up, and the Rathalos was across the map.

Has anyone else experienced this, or…?

Bones

Skeletons of war aren’t in the closet, they hide in plain sight. 

The first sign of war is on display in each one of the air temples: actual skeletons of a people who were killed amidst kindness, left hollow by the passing of a century.

The Fire Lord who helped end the war will return to one of these temples, years after the war has been won. He will go alone, and he will scour the Southern Air Temple for weeks. 

When he returns, he will gift the Avatar with the record of his birth, found in a library turned to dust, dirt, unburnt. 

The Avatar will cry, and feel more connected to his new family and his old than he ever has before, but the Fire Lord knows the Air Nomads will never come back. 

The second sign of war is the soldiers through the Earth Kingdom, disciplined and barbaric alike. 

The same Fire Lord will remember a young boy with his brother stolen for the front lines, who turned on him when he knew who he (his family, his legacy) really was. He will remember a girl’s kindness, repaid in rapacity. He will remember all the the charred earth he had seen, and a boy who died beneath a lake. 

The villages will be rebuilt, the soldiers brought home, and a baby ostrich horse will find a new home. A Fire Nation village, nestled in an Earth Kingdom forest, will be instructed to leave the intricate hideouts in the trees where they are. 

The Fire Lord won’t stay in these towns long enough to hear them say thank you, feeling he would break if he ever heard such a lie as gratefulness to him.  

Third, the destruction of the Southern water benders, an entire bending discipline now resting on the shoulders of a single water bender, made terrified by the prospect of unyielding control under the light of a full moon. 

He will release the prisoner who had taught her to blood bend into the water bender’s custody, and lets her decide what she sees fit (she looks into her eyes, blue bearing into gray, and demand imprisonment for eternity, both in body and in spirit).The young Fire Lord will see the relief and gratitude in her eyes, and ignore the loud protests of his advisors, who wanted the woman executed. But looking at Katara, he feels as though the Fire Nation should get no say in the matter. 

And the fourth is the Fire Lord himself, broken by a lineage of war and deceit, and even though he tries, even though he is reassured he has done more than what anyone expected of him, gone above and beyond, he will never be able to shake the feeling of guilt for a heritage he did not choose. 

He hides this skeleton in the closet, and smiles for the other nations, for his friends, but he feels it in his bones and in his soul. Every night he takes out the skeleton he made of these bones and dances with it, in the form of pacing, shaking, the thought of rest ever so a foreign concept. The night he arrives at the Southern Water Tribe (for the second time) greeted by Sokka with an embrace (he remembers tossing him to the side before), he will lay awake and clench his jaw, trying so hard not to think about Katara, the last water bender in the south pole. He will help rebuild the villages and towns and pay reparations to the Earth Kingdom, doubting his choice only in the case of Yu Dao, and even years later, is scared to think he actually made the wrong choice. He will help the Avatar rebuild the ties to the spirit world, replanting trees into a lush forest, a statue watching them gratefully in the distance. He will grip his hands, plaster a smile on his face, when Aang’s voice hitches when he talks about the air benders, and waits until he is alone at night to sob. 

The Fire Lord is haunted by ghosts and bones alike, the balance within him forever off kilter. So the Fire Lord carves every lost water bender, every Earth Kingdom family ripped apart, and every air nomad corpse into his own bones, a promise to always be redeeming, a darkness he takes with him to the grave.

“Uncle?”

The light knock came at the door to the Jasmine Dragon’s office,set back away from the dining room. The teashop had been closed for about an hour now, and Iroh had been working on paperwork in the back room. The setting sun streams through his window, and his seat was comfortable and his tea was hot.

He hadn’t expected anyone to still be in the restaurant- so he startled a little at the voice, until not only the voice but the word registered.

His heart fluttered a little, a smile pulling at the corners of his lips. He was happy in Ba Sing Se, he was, but every day his heart ached a little for his nephew, wanting to be with him.

The door cracked open, and Iroh stood up to greet his nephew. The young man sensed permission to come in, and the smile in his eyes nearly brought tears to Iroh’s.

Before Iroh was able to get out of his seat, Zuko had already crossed the room, placing a brightly colored package on the desk. “It’s good to see you, Uncle. I know you weren’t expecting me, I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”

Just the thought of Zuko interrupting anything seemed outlandish to Iroh, as Zuko was more important than anything in his life. “No, no, of course not, nephew. But what brings you here? Surely the throne is keeping you busy.” Iroh hoped there was no bad news.

In response, Zuko gestured to the package he had brought in, smiling, “I brought you something.”

Iroh looked down. The package was long and rectangular, like a book. It was wrapped neatly in thick red paper, a simple golden bow was elegantly wrapped around it.

He picked up the package, looking up at Zuko, who gestured for him to open it. Iroh slowly pulled at the ribbon, undoing the bow. The red paper was easily unwrapped, and Iroh was truly shocked at what laid in his hands.

Mounted in wood and glass, was a painting. In a delicate hand, black ink stretched across parchment, both smooth and jagged lines curving into the roots and branches of a tree.

It was beautiful, and must have cost a fortune, as he surveyed the details in the background behind the tree, the small and low buildings making a bustling market. Intricate blades of grass dotted the landscape, the sky and clouds painted so lightly they almost weren’t there. The skyline met a wall, that stretched across the back of the city…

Iroh stared. The details slowly began to click into place, and before he could even attempt to stop them, tears sprang to Iroh’s eyes.

“Zuko, this…this is…”

“I thought that, since he’s there, the tree should be immortalized in someway. To preserve the memory.”

Iroh was staring at a painting of the tree in Ba Sing Se, the tree his son was buried under.

His smile wobbled, and he looked up at his nephew, who had a light smile on his face— Zuko seemed hesitant to say more, as if he wasn’t sure if his uncle’s tears were of joy or not.

But his uncle immediately moved around the desk towards his nephew. Zuko was a fair bit taller than him now, at least a good 6 inches, so Iroh’s hug ran around Zuko’s waist, putting his head on his nephew’s chest. He squeezed tight, tears slipping from his eyes.

“Thank you. Thank you, Zuko. I love it. I love it.”

“I’m glad you do— I was a little worried it would be…too painful.”

Iroh shook his head against his nephew. “No, no. I miss Lu Ten, every day, but… I also have you.”

Iroh could just make out the faint beat of Zuko’s heart against his cheek, his second son, wonderfully alive.

“Whenever it becomes too much, I think of you. You are what gets me through the bad days. I love you.”

“I love you too, Uncle,” there was a smile in Zuko’s voice, “Happy Father’s Day.”

Let’s be real.

The day Ozai banished Zuko was also the day he lost the war.