Story [Avatar: The Last Airbender] A Black Cat at Autumn Festival (Oneshot for the Autumn Bingo Challenge)

Title: A Black Cat at Autumn Festival

Author: devilinthedetails

Genre: General; Family; Hurt/Comfort; Fluff.

Characters: Lu Ten; Iroh.

Summary: Lu Ten finds a black cat at Autumn Festival.

Author’s Note: Written for the Autumn Bingo Challenge. The row of prompts I chose was Graveyard+Gratitude+Black Cat+Pear+Bonfire.

A Black Cat at Autumn Festival

The island where the ashes of Lu Ten’s mother were buried–reached by walking along winding pebbled paths and crossing an arching bridge that spanned a placid pond swimming with koi–was a graveyard in a garden.

A garden whose trees were alight with the vibrant hues of autumn. Leaves of burning red. Blazing as the Fire Nation’s flaming seal. Leaves the rich, creamy yellow of mango. Leaves the abendrot orange of the sun setting over the waving, foam-flecked ocean.

It was Autumn Festival in the Fire Nation as the radiant gold, crimson, and orange of nature attested. A night for celebrating the abundance of the harvest with bonfires that filled the dark air with smoke and shooting, firefly sparks. A day for mourning the lost. For honoring the dead amidst a beautifully falling and decaying nature.

Lu Ten had already completed the traditional mourning rites at the stone that marked his mother’s final resting place that morning with his father beside him. He had swept the ground around her grave clean. Bowed before her–pressing his forehead to the earth–the customary three times. Lit sticks of incense to honor her memory and appeal to the spirits to grant her soul peace. Left her a heaping bowl of rice white as bone. As milk. As a baby’s milkteeth.

Lu Ten’s mother had died when he was a baby. Before his milkteeth had pushed through the tender flesh of his gums. When he was still toothless as a grandfather. She had died giving birth to him. Her last breath the price of his first.

Maybe that was why Lu Ten found himself drawn like a compass to true north back to her grave–to the ground where her ashes lay beneath the dirt–after the mourning rites were done at Autumn Festival. His manner of honoring her and the brave sacrifice she had offered giving her life for him. Of displaying the appropriate degree of gratitude and deference to her. Of acknowledging a debt that could never be repaid.

Kneeling before her tomb, Lu Ten permitted himself to touch her gravestone. To ghost his fingers along it. A phantom trace over the characters that spelled out the breathtaking poetry of her name.

“Manami.” Lu Ten murmured his mother’s name to himself as his fingers flowed over it. The syllables of her name sounding like music on his tongue. Like the sea kissing the black sand shore of Ember Island.

Ember Island. From the stories his father wove before bedtime (which were the only way that Lu Ten knew his mother at all), Lu Ten knew that his parents had eloped on Ember Island. Their match unarranged and unapproved by the Fire Lord. A fact that, because his mother was not a firebender, had caused much tension and bitterness between his father and grandfather before his mother had died in childbirth. Her death and the fact that Lu Ten was born a firebender ending that argument.

Rustling interrupted his ruminations. His eyes darting around him–anxious to detect the source of the sound that had ripped him from his reverie–he saw a cat, black as the Ember Island beaches where his parents had eloped, emerge from a pile of fallen leaves. Racked but not yet hauled away in a gardener’s tightly knotted sack.

Black cats were supposed to be bad luck. Agents of evil spirits wandering the world. Yet as he gazed into the almond slit eyes of the cat crouched among the rotting leaves, Lu Ten felt as if he were meeting a kindred spirit. As if his soul were being tugged inexorably toward the cat’s. As if the cat were meant to be his pet, and he predestined to be its protector.

He figured that made sense because a boy who killed his mother (however unintentionally) in childbirth had to be bad luck too. Not wanting to startle his cat, he crawled carefully toward it. Palms soft on the ground.

The cat didn’t flee. Just studied him with a steady, lamplike gaze. Even when Lu Ten reached slowly down to gather the warm, furry creature into his arms, the cat didn’t flinch. Didn’t hiss or claw at him.

He hugged his newfound cat–more precious to him than any treasure ever stolen by pirates haunting the oceans–to his chest and hurried to the pavilion where his father sat to beg permission to keep his discovered pet.

Father was sipping at a steaming cup of oolong tea and chewing on a platter of pear poached in rice wine, ginger, and nutmeg when Lu Ten burst into the pavilion like a typhoon. Lu Ten could smell the spices mingling in the air. Dancing in his nostrils. Making his mouth water with the inhaled scents and flavors of autumn.

“What is that in your arms, my son?” Father regarded him with a kind twinkle in his eyes.

“A cat I found in the garden.” The words tumbled out of Lu Ten before he could worry about making them coherent. He was too excited and eager for sensibility. For any sort of logic or comprehensivity. “May I keep him?”

“If he makes you happy.” Father beamed at him over the brim of his teacup. “Of course.”

“You mean it?” Lu Ten babbled. Tripping over his own tongue. “He’s a black cat. You don’t think he’s bad luck or the agent of evil spirits?”

“There’s no such thing as bad luck.” Father cut a piece of pear. Plopped it into Lu Ten’s gaping mouth. Smiling at the explosion of spice and sweetness that provoked an exclamation of delight from Lu Ten. “Our fortune, good or bad, is what we choose to make of it. There are no evil spirits either. Only spirits unhappy about the wrongs humans commit. Humans must apologize and atone to these unhappy spirits when they anger them. That is how balance is restored with the spirits. With nature. Within ourselves. Remember that.”

“Yes, Father.” Lu Ten nodded obediently. Struggling to understand a lesson that could have been taught in a foreign language for all he comprehended it. His father’s spirituality and wisdom was often on too transcendent a plane for him to follow. At least when he was a little boy. Maybe when he was older, he would understand. Be able to follow his father in scaling the heights of such lofty contemplation. “You don’t think this cat was sent by an evil spirit seeking revenge?”

“I don’t.” Father tweaked his nose affectionately. “I think your cat is a gift from the spirits they would not have bestowed upon you if they did not intend for you to have it.”

“I should thank the spirits then?” Lu Ten asked. All earnestness.

“That would be most proper.” Father robbed the moment of any solemnity it might have been imbued with otherwise by ruffling Lu Ten’s hair. “Come. They’ll be lighting the bonfires soon. We don’t want to miss that.”

 

@Kahara Thank you so much for reading and commenting! I had so much fun writing about this heartwarming black cat for the Halloween Bingo. I have a soft spot for black cats and black dogs so it was wonderful for me to have a chance to write about a black cat that is not treated as being unlucky despite all the superstitions about black cats.

Autumn is my favorite season, and seeing the changing leaves is a big part of why. So I was really trying to capture the vibrant beauty of those changing leaves in this fic, so I am absolutely delighted that you enjoyed the autumn details of the setting. Graveyards to me can often have a peaceful element to them given that they are often quite quiet and filled with greenery but at the same time, they can be mournful and lonely places because of the dead buried there, so that was part of my inspiration for making the little island where Lu Ten's mother was buried both peaceful and a bit melancholy in its isolation. A sacred sort of feeling was exactly the emotion I was trying to create, and I am so pleased that came through for you in the story. I definitely picture Lu Ten finding some comfort and connection to his mother when he visits her grave as you say. It is a way for him to be close to his mother and be reminded of how much she loved him.

It is great to hear that you felt I could convey Lu Ten's longing and sadness so effectively as well as the sorrow and reverence he feels when visiting her grave because that complex mixture of emotions was so much at the heart of this fic for me. My heart broke for Lu Ten many times writing this story. I also definitely head canon Lu Ten's mother as the sort of nurturing woman who would have been very affectionate and supportive of her son if she had survived childbirth. And I would not be surprised at all if the cat is a gift from her spirit from beyond the grave. Because I think there is something very special about Lu Ten's cat and where the cat was found. Right by his mother's grave.

I definitely believe that since Azulon was a firebending supremacist, Iroh marrying a non-firebender would've gone over like a lead balloon as the saying goes, but Iroh to me is exactly the sort of person who would follow his heart and marry for love. So that was why I had him elope with a non-firebender.

Oh, yes, animals most certainly have a knack for making themselves perfectly understandable without words whether they are supernatural creatures or not, and I so wanted to capture that truth with Lu Ten's meeting and communication with this black cat. I am so glad that shone through for you!

I felt so sorry for Lu Ten blaming himself for his mother's death. I one hundred percent agree that Iroh would never blame him for it but you are also right that survivor's guilt has the nasty habit of working that way, so in addition to mourning the mother he never met, Lu Ten has to wrestle with self-imposed guilt and grief about killing her. Poor Lu Ten.

I definitely think it was a special sort of fate and destiny for the cat and Lu Ten to meet by his mother's grave and to form an immediate bond. In many ways, as if they had known each other already.

I'm so happy that you loved Iroh's words of wisdom! I definitely imagine him as the sort who would believe that our luck like our destinies tend to be what we make of them, and that if there are unhappy spirits, it is only because the spirits were wronged and balance needs to be restored. And I am so glad that you felt that interpretation and his comments in this story were so in line with how his personality and attitudes were depicted in the show because he was one of my favorite characters from Avatar and I always want to do him justice when I write about him!

Yes, Lu Ten is so young that Iroh's wisdom is very abstract to him right now, but at least he can really benefit from his father's gentleness, support, and love! I don't know if canon ever established Lu Ten's age when he died exactly, but I would tend to imagine that it took place any time between his mid to late teens and his early twenties because from the show he didn't look much older than twenty at the time of his death, and I got the feeling that the Fire Nation often sent teenagers to war. So I tend to think of him dying quite young. A tragic sacrifice to a war that never needed to have been fought.

I absolutely head canon Iroh and Lu Ten having a very warm father son relationship (like the antithesis of the one that Ozai has with Zuko basically), and I am so happy that shone through here. And Iroh is indeed a wonderful source of affirmation for Lu Ten's instinct that he is meant to be friends-for-life with this cat he found.

Thank you so much for reading and for the thoughtful words. I really appreciate it!

@Tarsier Thank you so much for reading and commenting! I really appreciate it, and I'm so glad that you found the descriptions lovely because I really savored the opportunity to celebrate and create a fall vibe with this story. I am also a total softie when it comes to characters--especially if they are children--getting and bonding with a new pet. Animals and children can just steal my heart so easily, which is exactly what happened with Lu Ten and his cat as I wrote this storyI absolutely imagine Iroh as a very supportive and tender father so I am delighted that side of him shone through here! Thank you again for reading and for the kind words!

 

@earlybird-obi-wan As always, thank you so much for reading and for your kind comments

I am so flattered that you thought the descriptions of the garden were lovely because I did want to capture the beauty and peacefulness of the place where Lu Ten’s mother was buried.

Lu Ten and his relationship with his mother was at the heart of this piece so I am so happy that you appreciated how I wrote them.

It was truly heartwarming for me to write about Lu Ten finding a little black cat and committing to raising it

Thanks again for reading and reviewing! So glad you enjoyed the story!