Story [Avatar: The Last Airbender] Dragon Uprising (Lu Ten Oneshot for the 2024 Spring Bingo Challenge)

Title: Dragon Uprising

Author: devilinthedetails

Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Characters: Lu Ten; Iroh.

Genres: General; Family; Drama.

Summary: On a spring day, Lu Ten asks his father about dragons and their slaying.

Author’s Note: Written for the wonderful @Chyntuck's Spring Bingo Challenge using the column: Uprising + Dragon + Rebirth + Honey + Orange.

Dragon Uprising

Thirteen-year-old Lu Ten stood near the northern wall of the enclosed garden. Stroking the scaled back of a dragon that felt warm beneath his palm. Warm not from the blazing furnace within its belly–the fire of its life and beating heart–but from the absorbed heat of the spring sun shining down on its carefully carved, moss-coated stone surface.

Dragon rock sculptures were common in Fire Nation gardens and courtyards. Often planted like sentries along the northern walls. Intended to provide flaming protection against invasion and tsunami.

A tradition, Lu Ten’s tutor had once told him an encyclopedic tone, dating back at least to the third imperial dynasty. Though some sources disputed that. Argued the origins of the custom might stretch even further back than that. To the misty dawn of the first imperial dynasty thousands of years ago.

Regardless of the exact date of their initial creation, the popularity of these dragon sculptures had persisted long after the two most recent Fire Lords had decreed that the last living dragons were to be hunted down. Slain. Driven to extinction. Eliminated from the world.

“You killed the last dragon, didn’t you, Father?” Lu Ten asked. Somewhat needlessly because he knew that it was his father’s heroism in slaying the last dragon that had merited him the reverential moniker Dragon of the West. A title bestowed upon him by Fire Lord Azulon himself years before Lu Ten was born when he had hunted down the last dragon.

Lu Ten wasn’t sure how to feel about his father slaying the last dragon. He was proud of his father’s bravery and service to the Fire Nation, of course. Admired the honor and golden luster of the title his father had earned.

Still, a possibly traitorous part of him mourned the loss of the last dragon. Wished that the dragons weren’t gone from the world. Was curious what they had been like. Wondered what it would have been like to interact with one. To ride on the back of one.

“I slew the last dragon,” Father corrected in a way that made no sense to Lu Ten. “To slay is not the same as to kill.”

“Was it a great battle when you slew the last dragon?” Lu Ten’s forehead knotted. Hoping his father would ease his confusion with a thrilling, unambiguous account of valor.

“Not a great battle so much as a great dance.” Father smiled and lifted a porcelain teacup to his lips. Wafting the fresh-floral scent of orange blossom sweetened with squirts of wild honey to Lu Ten on the soft breeze sawing through the miniature red maples and the bonsai trees.

“A great dance?” Lu Ten arched a skeptical eyebrow like a willow bridge over a garden pond. More bewildered than ever by his father’s cryptic phrasing.

“Like the dance between the sun and the earth.” Father sipped at his tea. “Between moon and water. Between wood and licking flame.”

“Why did you slay the last dragon, Father?” Lu Ten’s fingers drifted to coil around the stone wings of the rock dragon meant to protect their house from invasion and tsunami. From disaster and harm.

“Because my father ordered it, and his father before him.” Father blew on his tea as if it were suddenly too hot for him though he had been drinking it contentedly enough a moment earlier.

“Why did they order it?” Lu Ten pressed at the point and crux of the issues he did not understand. “Dragons were the first firebenders. Learning the art of firebending from the sun itself and teaching it to their chosen mortals. They have been symbols of the Fire Nation for thousands of years, so why–”

“Dragons are clever, stubborn creatures with independent minds of their own.” Father resumed sipping at his orange blossom tea. “They cannot be forced to do the bidding of even the strongest-willed firebender if it goes against their consciences. Their convictions. Your grandfather and great-grandfather feared a dragon uprising until the day the last dragon was slain.”

“You respected the last dragon.” Lu Ten’s spirit ached to touch the wing of a true flesh-and-blood dragon rather than a stone one. “Would you welcome the rebirth of dragons one day? When the war is over?”

The war had to end one day, after all. It couldn’t go on forever. No war, civil or otherwise, in Fire Nation history had. Another lesson his tutor had taught him with dull, droning lectures on sunlit afternoons when he wished he could run around and climb trees with his friends.

“Does the entire world not breathlessly await the rebirth of the sun after a total eclipse?” Father grinned.

“The sun isn’t dead during a total eclipse.” Lu Ten couldn’t resist reminding his father of this astronomical technicality. “It is merely hiding behind the moon. Or seems to be from our place on earth.”

“And perhaps–” Father tugged teasingly at Lu Ten’s ear with the hand that didn’t hold his precious teacup– “the dragons are not dead either. Only playing a prolonged game of hide-and-seek with us until it is safe for them to emerge once more. They are very clever and cunning creatures as I said.”

“You are a very clever and cunning creature yourself, Father.” Lu Ten laughed. Unable to be bitter when he was so loved and amused by his father. “And you do delight in your riddles.”

“A good riddle tastes as delicious on the tongue as orange blossom tea sweetened with wild honey.” Father nodded sagely as if reciting an aphorism coined by grave, silver-bearded philosophers of proud dynasties past. Released Lu Ten’s ear. Squeezed his shoulder affectionately. “A man who cannot appreciate the supple cleverness of a good riddle lacks the flexibility of mind to truly enjoy the pleasures and humors of life.”

 

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha As always, thank you so much for reading and reviewing all my Avatar: The Last Airbender fics!

I'm so happy to hear that you appreciated the detail of rock dragons being a protective tradition in the Fire Nation! I must admit that I borrowed and adapted it from a Chinese custom I learned about while visiting Lan Su Garden in Portland, Oregon, which taught me a lot about Ming dynasty gardens in particular. The idea of placing rock dragons in the north of gardens for protection really stuck with me and seemed like something that could be part of Fire Nation culture as well with their connection to dragons.

Iroh's words about the dance between sun and earth, and moon and water were some of my favorite of this story, since to me they reflected that balance that is such a theme of Avatar, and I am so thrilled that they resonated with you as well!

And it seemed so true to Iroh's character to have him remark that a riddle is tasty as orange blossom tea sweetened with honey so it is wonderful to hear that line resonated with you too

In my mind, Lu Ten and Iroh definitely have a very open relationship with excellent, loving communication. Iroh does indeed always answer Lu Ten's queries, as you say, and Lu Ten loves his father for his wisdom and his riddles

@earlybird-obi-wan Thank you so much for reading and commenting as always! Iroh does indeed enjoy answering Lu Ten with riddles, but later events may reveal that the dragons are not gone from the world after all. Only hiding like Iroh hints!

@JediMaster_Jen Thank you so much for reading and for the kind words! I think your hope that the dragons aren't dead will ultimately be rewarded and the dragons will return to the Fire Nation when the Fire Nation is ready to respect and appreciate them once more! And Lu Ten is indeed most perceptive, a great trait in a person of any age! I am so happy you found this fic wonderful, and thank you again for the support

 

@Chyntuck Thank you so much for reading and reviewing and for hosting this beautiful Spring Challenge

I'm so glad that you loved all the conversation in this piece and that you in particular enjoyed all the double entendres in Iroh's answers to his inquisitive son! I picture Iroh being a father who would enjoy indulging in those sort of clever double entendres when he was answering questions from his son, and I think that all of Iroh's riddles would encourage Lu Ten's perceptiveness. Just as Iroh's gentler, more compassionate side helped spark Lu Ten's spontaneous understanding that the first fire benders should be celebrated rather than hunted and down and slain, and it does indeed break me heart to think that he never got to learn what Iroh actually did with the last dragon

And it makes my day to hear that you loved the descriptions of the garden and the ornaments, and that you felt it made sense for the Fire Nation gardens to have symbolic protectors and guards. I learned about the dragon sculptures that inspire the ones mentioned in this story during my trip to the Lan Su Chinese garden in Portland, Oregon, which were designed by gardeners from Suzhou, China in the style of Ming Dynasty Chinese gardens. At the Lan Su garden, I was lucky enough to have a fantastically informative guide who educated me on the symbolism of dragon sculptures in Chinese gardens among other things. The Lan Su garden also had a lovely tea house that Iroh would have appreciated

Sozin and Azulon's reigns do indeed give a tragic irony to the protective dragon statue tradition, which is just another way that the Fire Nation got "lost" from its true identity during the 100 year war.

Thanks again for reading and for the kind words of support and encouragement for my writing!