Story [Avatar: The Last Airbender] Fire Burns Everything It Touches (Roku Decathlon for Fanfic Olympics)

Title: Fire Burns Everything It Touches

Author: devilinthedetails

Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Genre: A variety of genres.

Characters: Roku; Sozin; Gyatso; Kyoshi; Fang; Sozin's Dragon; Sud; Roku's wife; Roku's daughter.

Summary: An anthology of stories written for my Roku Decathlon for the 2021 Fanfic Summer Olympics.

Index of Entries:

Chosen by the Spirits. Single Sentence Shotput. Roku; Sozin. Post #2.

At Szeto's Shrine. 200 Freestyle. Roku; Sozin. Post #3.

The Sacred Flames. 400 Word Cross Country. Roku; Sozin; Fang; Sozin's dragon. Post #5.

Best Friends. 100 Word Sprint. Roku; Gyatso. Post #6.

Face to Face with a Past Incarnation. Roku; Kyoshi. Post #7.

Four Virtues and Four Nations. 4x100 Relay. Roku; Sozin; Roku's wife; Roku's daughter; Sud. Post #8.

A Train Ride through Ba Sing Se. 110 Word Hurdle. Roku; Sud. Post #9.

For History and for Posterity. 1500 Word Dash. Roku; Sud; OC's. Post #11.

Drowning Black Oblivion. Water Polo Poetry. Roku; Northern Water Tribe. Post #12.

Brother and Bane. AU Archery. Roku; Sozin; Fang; Sozin's Dragon. Post #13.

Decathlon complete on 8/10/2021. Thread still open for comments, of course!

 

Title: Chosen by the Spirits

Genre: Angst; Drama.

Characters: Roku; Sozin.

Event: Single Sentence Shotput.

Summary: Roku wishes the spirits had chosen another Avatar.

Chosen by the Spirits (Single Sentence Shotput)

Even as he floated above the ruins of the Fire Nation throne room--a throne room he had destroyed--and warned the man who had once been a brother to him that he would end him if colonization of the Earth Kingdom continued, Roku wished the spirits had chosen another to maintain balance between the elements and serve as Sozin’s foe on their behalf.

 

Title: At Szeto's Shrine

Genre: General; Friendship.

Characters: Roku; Sozin.

Event: 200 Freestyle

Summary: A young Roku and Sozin visit Szeto's shrine and reflect on Fire Avatars past and present.

At Szeto’s Shrine (200 Freestyle)

“Strange to think that the next Fire Avatar is alive but unknown to everybody,” muttered Sozin as he and Roku knelt on silken pillows and burned incense to honor the birthday of Avatar Szeto. The Fire Nation Avatar before the great Yangchen who had devoted a majority of his life to restoring political stability to the Fire Nation by centralizing authority around Fire Lord Yosor and codifying many of the laws that still governed the Fire Nation.

“Not unknown to everybody,” Roku whispered back, recalling their tutor’s lessons even if Sozin did not. “The Fire Sages know the Avatar’s identity and will reveal it on the Avatar’s sixteenth birthday as is tradition.”

When the Avatar’s identity was revealed in a formal ceremony, there would be celebrating and feasting throughout the Fire Nation for weeks. Schools and work would be cancelled. Fireworks would be lit in nighttime skies. Operas would be sung on every stage.

“I wish I knew who the Avatar was.” Sozin’s lip curled sulkily. “When I’m Fire Lord, I’ll have to work with whoever it is, and I’ll expect whoever it is to put loyalty to the Fire Nation above all else as the inimitable Avatar Szeto did.”

 

This is a very interesting character to feature in your decathlon! I don't think I've ever read anything from Avatar Roku's POV before, but I've certainly enjoyed these two entries and I look forward to reading more.

Oh, ouch. (This so called to mind the Plagues song from The Prince of Egypt for me.) It hurt, seeing the ruins of their friendship, all because Sozin couldn't content himself with the power he did have as Fire Lord.

Yep, his identity is a mystery. I enjoyed the tongue in cheek irony of this one as much as I did the foreshadowing. Sozin already wants to demand loyalty from the Avatar he'll have to work alongside with (an Avatar who, even though he's born of the Fire Nation, will belong to all the peoples of the world) but he'll deny that same trust and loyalty to his friend when it matters most. Gah, such a heartbreaking, tangled web that you've given us a great glimpse of!


Keep up the great work!

 

@Mira_Jade As always, thank you so much for your kind and thoughtful words! Recently, I've found myself really interested in both the lead-up to the One Hundred Year War with the Fire Nation (how the Fire Nation got to the point where Sozin could lead it to genocide) and the aftermath of it. So Roku seemed like a perfect character to explore that with since he not only had this complex relationship with Sozin as friend and enemy but also would have traveled between the different nations, truly seeing the world, as part of his journey to master the four elements.

I always felt like there was something tragic about the disintegration of Roku and Sozin's friendship that was like a brotherhood. I can't imagine how horrifying it would be for Roku to be killed because someone who was once like a brother to him refused to help him, and even Sozin remembering as his life dims a time with Roku when everything was brighter has a tinge of regret to it. A sense of mourning even if it is not outright remorse.

I love that you mentioned the Plagues, because it has actually been one of my main mood-setting music pieces as I write this story. So it must be trickling it's way into my writing.

I couldn't resist the tongue-in-cheek irony of Sozin lamenting that he doesn't know the future Fire Avatar when he actually is right next to him, and also that heavy, darker foreshadowing of Sozin expecting absolute loyalty and obedience from the future Fire Avatar. Sozin basically expected the Fire Avatar to be loyal to the Fire Nation and obedient to the Fire Lord at the expense of all the other Nations that the Avatar was supposed to serve, and that's a large part of why things got so messed up. That presumption on Sozin's part.

Next chapter will give us another little glimpse of Roku and Sozin's childhood friendship as they hatch their dragons. I hope you enjoy it!

---

Title: The Sacred Flames

Genre: General; Friendship; Fantastical.

Characters: Roku; Sozin; Fang; Sozin's dragon.

Event: 400 Word Cross Country

Summary: Roku and Sozin hatch their dragons.

The Sacred Flames (400 Word Cross Country)

On the sunset of their seventh, shared birthday, Roku and Sozin were locked in the great sanctuary of the Fire Sages. They had been prepared and purified for this ritual where they would attempt to hatch their dragons for weeks in advance.

Still, even though what they had to do had been hammered into Roku and Sozin’s heads, the chief priest of the Fire Sages left them with a final warning to last until dawn’s early light pierced the temple windows.

“You must tend the flames sacred to Agni.” A sweeping gesture of scarlet-sleeved robe at the crimson-and-azure blazes encircling two dragon eggs the same hue as the nourishing, burning flames. “They must not die before sunrise.”

(Long ago, children of the Fire Nation chosen to give birth to dragons had been hurled alive into calderas if they disrespected Agni and allowed the sacred flames to flicker out before dawn. Now the Fire Nation was more civilized and less brutal, a child who failed to keep the sacred flames burning through the night and so failed to give birth to a dragon would only be disgraced. Disowned by family. Banished from home.)

The chief priest swished from the temple, leaving Roku and Sozin alone in a dark temple lit only by the dancing red and blue flames sacred to Agni. Flames that didn’t scare away the shadows that lurked behind the statues of the past Fire Avatars who seemed to sit in judgment all around them. Their eyes hard, chiseled marble but somehow glowing. Dead stone but somehow alive.

“Do the statues seem alive to you?” Roku whispered to Sozin, hushed voice echoing loudly in the empty, dark temple.

“No.” Sozin’s tone was a rough pinch waking Roku from a living nightmare. “It’s only a trick of the fire and shadows dancing with each other. Don’t let the Fire Sage’s prattle spook you.”

Together, they tended the sacred flames until dawn permeated the temple. As the sun rose orange, the eggs cracked, and Roku thought they had failed until two dragons emerged. One azure and one crimson. The azure one snaked around Sozin’s shoulders, while the crimson one coiled around Roku’s neck.

A tentacle pressed against Roku’s forehead and a voice sounded in his skull, dangerous and life-giving as fire. I am Fang, your animal companion and guide who will never leave you. Who will die before I leave you.

 

Title: Best Friends

Genre: General; Friendship; Fluff.

Characters: Roku; Gyatso.

Event: 100 Word Sprint

Summary: Roku arrives at the Southern Air Temple and meets a cheerful young Gyatso.

Best Friends (100 Word Sprint)

“I’m Gyatso,” announced the novice who’d been assigned to guide Roku to his room. A small cell furnished only with a mat for sleeping and a cushion by the window for meditation. A stark contrast to the luxury he’d been accustomed to as ward of the Fire Lord. Even though Roku had been too forlorn to ask his name.

Beaming like sunshine, Gyatso continued cheerily, “We’re going to be best friends, I can feel it.”

Roku returned Gyatso’s smile weakly, thinking it’d be impolite to respond he already had a best friend he was missing back in the Fire Nation.

 

Title: Face to Face with a Past Incarnation

Genre: Fantasy; General; Spiritual.

Characters: Roku; Kyoshi.

Event: Fantastical Fencing

Summary: Roku meets Kyoshi in the Southern Air Temple.

Face to Face with a Past Incarnation (Fantastical Fencing)

“It’s time that you meet someone special who will be a mentor to you all your days.” Roku’s airbending master, garbed in the simple yellow-and-orange robes beneath the bald head that was common to all Air Nomad monks, said as he led Roku to the door of the most holy and mysterious chamber in the sanctuary that was the Southern Air Temple.

The space behind the door was so sacred that the door was locked by some strange apparatus Roku could only assume was operated by the manipulation of air currents through airbending.

He was proved correct in this assumption when his master deftly sent air from four different directions up the spirals of the apparatus and the door opened to reveal a series of ever-widening, concentric circles of statues that climbed level after level, row after dizzying row, to the ceiling.

Awed by the artistry that had created these statues beyond his counting, Roku took a step forward. The statues looked familiar even though he had never seen them before in his life.

As he came closer, he recognized some of the carved faces in the smallest ring. Faces of the past. Of history. His history. His past. Faces of the Avatars that had come before him.

There was wild Kuruk in the distinctive furs that marked him as a member of the Northern Water Tribe. Kuruk, who had lived to hunt evil spirits and died too young as a result. The Great Avatar Yangchen, born in the Western Air Temple. Hailed for her wisdom, determination, and willingness to do whatever was necessary to maintain peace and balance in the universe, no major wars or threats to peace occured in her lifetime or an entire generation after her death. Behind the Great Yangchen was Szeto, the Fire Avatar before Roku. Szeto might have focused much of his efforts and attention on the Fire Nation, but that decision had paid off in the codified laws and centralized government that had brought order to the Fire Nation after a long period of turmoil. He would certainly never be forgotten and always have an honored legacy in the Fire Nation. After Szeto came the rather severe-looking Earth Avatar Salai, who seemed to be judging Roku and finding him distinctly wanting…

“Your past incarnations.” Roku’s teacher gestured around at the statues encircling them before bowing to one in particular. The very last statue in the very last ring. “Meet Kyoshi, who will be your mentor in your journey as Avatar. She will connect you to the wisdom of your past lives. Your connection to her will ensure that your link to all your past lives will be unbroken. Your relationship with her will guarantee that the Avatar cycle continues for another generation.”

Roku’s gaze finally fell on the figure he had been most avoiding. The long-lived Avatar Kyoshi whose legacy cast such a bright, shining light that he couldn’t help living in her shadow. If Salai looked unimpressed by Roku, he could only imagine how let down by her successor Kyoshi would feel…

Kyoshi’s red-painted lips seemed to quirk, and her green eyes appeared to focus on him as if there was nobody else in the world as her statue came alive. Alive not with the condemnation he had feared but with a glimmer of humor lacing her dry words, “Your early days can’t have been more disappointing than mine. They didn’t even know I was the Avatar for most of my childhood. They thought it was my friend Yun who was Avatar because I had trouble making pebbles move. I lacked that kind of control over my earthbending.”

“I haven’t even started to learn earthbending yet.” Roku didn’t pause to consider how insane he must appear. Conversing with a statue as if he expected an answer. Because he did expect an answer. It suddenly seemed impossible for him to expect otherwise in this sacred space where he felt so connected to his past lives. As if all the memories of his previous incarnations were woven and entwined into his own flesh and blood.

“That’s because your native element is fire.” Kyoshi laughed, and the sound was more like a tinkling bell and less harsh than Roku had anticipated. He didn’t know why he had expected and prepared for harshness, but he had. It was a relief to feel the last defensive walls he had built inside himself crumble and fall as there became no boundaries between them, his past and present selves merging into a transcendent whole. “You won’t learn earth until much later in your journey as Avatar.”

“And you will be my mentor, my guide on my journey as Avatar.” Roku smiled, pleased and not intimidated by the prospect.

“I will be.” Perhaps Kyoshi did want him intimidated at least a little bit because she rapped him on the head with her iconic fans. “And you will listen to me.”

Comfort. Challenge. Discipline. Roku didn’t know what else he could have expected from his past life. His past self. It felt strange but serene to feel more deeply in tune with himself than he ever had before. The Air Temple was the place for such meditations and revelations. That was why this chamber filled with all the statues of every Avatar who had ever lived and breathed stretching back to the first Avatar Wan ten thousand years ago. A tribute and memorial to the unbroken legacy of the Avatar that continued in him and would endure after him. A legacy he would one day pass onto the next Avatar who would stand in this room among statues, gazing at the faces of his past lives.

 

Title: Four Virtues and Four Nations

Genre: General; Friendship; Family; Romance; Spiritual.

Characters: Roku; Sozin; Roku's wife; Roku's wife; Roku's daughter; Sud.

Event: 4x100 Relay.

Summary: Roku and the virtues he learns in each of the Four Nations.

Four Virtues and Four Nations (4x100 Relay)

Air

Air was the element of freedom. Of detachment from worldly concerns. As Roku had been taught from his first meditation lesson at the Southern Air Temple. With that freedom from worldly concerns came an unrivaled capacity for affection and teasing where Roku had expected indifference and ascetic denial of all pleasure.

“You should shave your head.” Gyatso bent an air current to ripple Roku’s hair as they stood on the edge of the mountains, staring down at floating, white clouds. “Then you could feel the air flowing around you.”

“I don’t want to be an egghead like you.” Roku laughed.

Fire

Fire was the element of power and passion. Roku found his deepest passions, his greatest intimacies, forged on the scattered volcanic islands of the Fire Nation.

The intimacy of Fang’s ember-hot body beneath him. A body he had hatched from flame himself. The intimacy of sprawling in the grass beside his best friend, pouring out his despair that the love of his life would never notice him as Sozin toyed at his ear with a wisp of green grass.

The intimacy of the love of his life lying beneath him as they came together, creating a new life. A daughter.

Water

Water was the element of change. Of the tides that waxed and waned with the cycles of the moon.

“Water chooses the smoothest course. That is why rivers can cross continents,” the healing women murmured to him as they erased the bruises of his training, teaching him more about the mysteries of water than the warrior assigned to be his master. “Water trickles steadily. That is why it can wear down mountains and carve canyons from stone.”

The women of the Water Tribe knew how to change, but their friendship was never fickle, and always constant as water on stone.

Earth

Earth was the element of persistence and endurance. The element of harsh, unforgiving stone. Roku wasn’t surprised by how uncompromising, stubborn, and blunt his earthbending master, Sud, could be.

What shocked him was what Sud taught him about charity. About giving in the spirit of humility as the earth itself gave to them.

“The Earth is our mother who feeds and sustains us,” Sud told Roku in a field where they could feel seeds of golden grain germinating beneath the loamy soil. “We must follow her example, feeding and sustaining each other. Sharing our bounty as she does with us.”

 

Title: A Train Ride through Ba Sing Se

Genre: General.

Characters: Roku; Sud.

Event: 110 Word Hurdle.

Summary: Roku and his first train ride through Ba Sing Se.

A Train Ride through Ba Sing Se (110 Word Hurdle)

“We have trains in the Fire Nation too,” he commented to his earthbending master as he watched Ba Sing Se whiz by on his first train ride through the Earth Kingdom’s ancient capital. The train was propelled forward by the smooth strides of two earthbenders in the rear.

“The Earth Kingdom invented trains first.” His earthbending instructor’s tone rang with pride. “The Fire Nation saw how brilliant the technology was and appropriated it.”

He was too much a faithful son of the Fire Nation not to point out hotly, “Our trains are faster.”

Being steam-powered, of course they were.

“They’re louder and pollute more too.” His earthbending master’s lips thinned.

 

I loved this throwback to B1!

Aw! A lifeliveslong friendship, in more ways than one.

Again, I just adore the bond between Gyatso and Roku!

And Sud is BRILLIANT!


These continue to be such a wonderful look into such an unexplored time and character.

 

@Mira_Jade As always, thank you so much for reading and commenting on my Avatar fics!

I couldn't resist a little throwback to Book 1, and I'm so glad that you enjoyed it

I really loved the line in Avatar about some friendships being so strong that they last more than one lifetime, so I knew I wanted to provide some little glimpses into that friendship between Gyatso and Roku that transcended death and became a freindship between Gyatso and Aang. That idea of a bond that survives even death is just so moving to me, and I'm so happy that you like what I did with the bond between Roku and Gyatso in this story!

I'm so glad that you found Sud brilliant. You will get another chance to see Sud in this upcoming chapter, and I hope you enjoy him here just as much!

Thank you again for your kind words, and I hope you will continue to find this a wonderful look at a time and character that doesn't get a lot of attention in fanficBecause as a writer I am truly enjoying delving into this underexplored character and time, which have both proved rich with inspiration for me!

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Title: For History and for Posterity

Genre: General; Friendship.

Characters: Roku; Sud; OC's.

Event: 1500 Word Dash

Summary: The Earth Kingdom's history is rich and deep as Roku discovers.

For History and for Posterity (1500 Word Dash)

Roku woke with a groan, his back aching as it had every morning since he arrived in the city of Siyan in the northwestern Earth Kingdom to train under the gruff earthbending Master Sud. The bed he slept on in the Earth Kingdom was harder than any surface he had ever been expected to sleep on in his life. Harder than the luxuriant silks he had enjoyed in the royal palace as a favored ward of the Fire Lord. Harder than the mattress made from the down air bison shed as the seasons changed at the Southern Air Temple. Harder than the fur blankets piled onto beds of ice in snow houses that he had slept in during his time amongst the Northern Water Tribe.

Master Sud and his wife Yuyan claimed that the hard bed was good for the back, strengthening it. Roku secretly doubted this and thought it was more likely to cause damage to his spine.

Apparently, this morning, with all his yawning and stretching, he was taking what Master Sud deemed too long to emerge from his rock-hard bed.

A pebble smacked against his skull with the force of a mallet, one of Master Sud’s favorite methods of jolting him into alertness when he seemed too sleepy-headed.

“Training time! Rise and shine, slugabed!” Master Sud barked loudly enough to be heard by everyone in their hutong.

Siyan was a city of hutongs. A warren of connected courtyard homes and businesses. Of narrow, twisting alleyways that even those born and raised in the city could get lost in. A place where Roku could never quite feel like a local.

“Yes, Master,” mumbled Roku, reluctantly rising from his bed and crossing his small chamber to the chest where he stored his robes.

Satisfied that Roku was truly up, Master Sud left him in peace to change. Roku rubbed the grains of sleep from his eyes and pulled his robes over his head. By the time he was finished dressing and brushing his hair, the distinct aroma of Yuyan’s sweet congee and its accompanying braided strips of deep-fried dough called youtiao.

Yuyan’s sweet congee and youtiao were some of the most delectable food to be found in the entire Earth Kingdom as far as Roku was concerned, and his stomach was rumbling in anticipation of a very delicious breakfast as he hurried downstairs and into the dining room.

Before he could claim his customary cushion at the low table, Master Sud grabbed him by the elbow and steered him toward the door that opened onto the hutong’s communal courtyard. “No breakfast for you now. Time for training.”

“Are you mad at me?” Roku couldn’t think of any other reason for his master to deny him the food he needed to fuel his training as he was dragged into the courtyard, which was already filled with a gaggle of laughing children kicking a ball. His hunger also wasn’t helped by the women who sat peeling vegetables, shelling peas, and rolling out dough for dumplings, noodles, and scallion pancakes on rocks. “Did I do something wrong? Is that why I’m not allowed to eat?”

“No.” Master Sud gave a short, sharp shake of his head. “But I will become mad at you if you don’t stop asking questions and start your morning exercises.”

Spotting a lost argument when it stared him in the face, Roku stifled a resigned sigh that would only earn him a thwack on the head from his stern, never-amused instructor and shifted into the broad stance necessary to practice his earthbending forms.

Master Sud bellowed out corrections as he put Roku through his paces, his exacting training garnering approving nods from a pair of elderly men playing a game of pai sho at an outdoor table of a nearby teahouse.

The sun climbed higher in the sky. Sweat dotted Roku’s forehead and dripped down his back, soaking his clothing so that it clung to his skin like damp rags. Finally, Master Sud shouted a halt.

“We will meet a friend of mine from Ba Sing Se who is visiting the city on business now,” he announced, nodding his head toward the hutong’s only two-story restaurant owned by a widow who made scrumptious jiaozi dumplings and jianbing crepes but was an unrepentant gossip. “I expect you to be on your best behavior and make a good impression.”

Roku didn’t have an opportunity to ask whether he should clean himself up before they met Master Sud’s friend because Master Sud was already hurrying across the courtyard toward the restaurant, leaving Roku in no position to do anything but follow.

When Master Sud had stated that they were to meet a friend of his who was in Siyan on business, Roku had pictured an immaculately groomed gentleman with all the hauter that came from living in the Earth Kingdom’s gleaming capital. Instead, he was introduced to a man with rumpled hair who was unlikely to notice much less be bothered by Roku’s disheveled appearance. A middle-aged man with a girl who couldn’t have been far beyond her teenage years beside him. Both of them dressed in dusty shirts and shorts as if they had been interrupted during an excavation of an ancient tomb.

“Professor Wang Dishi, this is my student, the Avatar Roku.” Master Sud performed the introductions, referring to Roku as the Avatar, which he rarely did. “Roku, this is Professor Wang Dishi of the Archeology Department at Ba Sing Se University as well as his most promising student, Tang Xijing.”

Professor Wang being a member of the Archeology Department at least explained the attire of him and his star pupil.

“It is an honor to meet you both.” Roku bowed in the Earth Kingdom fashion.

Social niceties complete, the four of them settled into thick pillows before a low table with a spinning tray that would allow them to better share the dishes they ordered. No sooner had they sat down than the proprietess bustled up to them. Master Sud ordered pork jiaozi, beef jiaozi, hot and dry noodles cooked in sesame oil until tender, and jianbing loaded with egg, scallions, cilantro, sweet soybean paste, and chili sauce for the table. This would be washed down with the jasmine tea that was an essential part of any upscale dining in the Earth Kingdom.

“Is that the hairpiece traditionally worn by the heir to the Fire Nation throne?” Professor Wang gawked at the ornament perched as usual in the nest of Roku’s hair.

“Yes.” Roku nodded, hand instinctively reaching up to stroke the headpiece as it was mentioned. “My best friend, Prince Sozin, gave it to me before I departed the Fire Nation to master the Four Elements.”

“Fascinating.” Professor Wang clapped his palms together in delight. “Perhaps you would let my student draw it? She illustrates all my discoveries for posterity.”

“Of course.” There didn’t seem to be any other gracious response Roku could give for Tang Xijing had already whipped out a notebook and begun a charcoal sketch of his headpiece.

She had only just completed her drawing and removed her notebook from the table when the steaming plates of jiaozi, jianbing, and hot and dry noodles arrived.

As everybody dived into the food with gusto and flashing chopsticks, Master Sud commented to Roku, “Professor Wang has requested our help on his latest dig for the First King’s Lost Army.”

“It’s said to be buried under a li of soil and rock,” exclaimed Professor Wang with a glee that could only come from not being the one expected to lift a majority of that soil and rock. No doubt that glamorous duty would fall to Master Sud and Roku as the earthbenders doing the grunt work.

“The First King’s Lost Army?” Roku frowned, having never heard of such a thing.

“Siyan used to be the capital of the Earth Kingdom before Ba Sing Se replaced it,” Professor Wang explained with the inflated air of a man pontificating on the area of his greatest expertise. “The First King conquered the various city-states of this continent and forged it into what we now call the Earth Kingdom. When he died, he was buried with an army of a thousand terracotta soldiers guarding his tomb. A tomb and soldiers nobody has ever been able to uncover.”

“Professor Wang has led three failed searches.” Master Sud’s remark didn’t exactly inspire confidence in this latest expedition.

“Not failures,” Professor Wang corrected loftily. “They taught me where not to look.”

“Some say each terracotta warrior was only an inch tall.” Tang Xijing’s words only increased Roku’s skepticism.

“More records say each terracotta warrior was life-sized.” Professor Wang was still unfazed.

“How do you know the records aren’t exaggerated?” Roku burst out. “That the terracotta warriors aren’t an inch tall, but history and legend built them up to be life-sized?”

“I don’t,” Professor Wang admitted with such honesty Roku suddenly wanted to help him. “But I have to find out. For history. For posterity.”

Author's Note: Hutongs are based on the ones that may be found in northern Chinese cities, most notably Beijing. The terracotta warriors and history are likewise inspired by the famous terracotta army outside Xi'an. Names of OC's are similarly drawn from Chinese sources.

 

Title: Drowning Black Oblivion

Genre: Poetry.

Characters: Roku; Northern Water Tribe.

Event: Water Polo Poetry.

Summary: The lessons Roku learns in winter and summer at the North Pole.

Drowning Black Oblivion

In the winter, the North Pole
was dark and cold
as death or drowning.

The only light came from
the silver-ice moon arching
over the snow domes

and the needle-prick stars
glistening overhead,
waiting to be wished on

and swimming shiny
as sharp fish scales
in the winding canals.

The only fire for Roku’s bending
came from the fuel burning
within himself

and the flickering candles
that smelled of hunted
whale blubber when they burned.

It was in the winter,
cut off from sun and fire,
that he first relied on water.

Bending it in a mirror
of the moon above
twisting tides in the sea.

In the summer,
the sun stayed
endlessly in the sky.

Melting the glaciers.
Dancing on the waves
with wild-child joy.

The sun never set
into the cresting waves
and Roku’s firebending

never felt so strong as it did
in a light that always shined.
A sun that never fell into ocean.

A flame that never died,
or burned itself into nothing,
into drowning black oblivion.

 

Title: Brother and Bane

Genre: AU; Action; Drama; Angst.

Characters: Roku; Sozin; Fang; Sozin's Dragon.

Event: AU Archery

Summary: A different ending to Roku and Sozin's duel with the volcano.

Brother and Bane (AU Archery)

Roku coughed, choking on the toxic, volcanic fumes.

“It’s too much,” he managed to rasp as the wind raging around him swept his scarlet robes around his face, obstructing his view of Sozin. The old, estranged friend who had appeared against all odds at his hour of deepest need to assist him in his duel against this terrible, erupting volcano.

Collapsing to the cindered, smoking ground, heaving for breath with scalded lungs and feeling the life flicker inside him like a torch in a fierce storm, he extended a pleading palm to Sozin, his brother and bane. “Please.”

Even to his own ears, he sounded old. Pitiful. Pathetic. Pathetic enough to save? That was a question only Sozin could answer.

Through trembling fingers, he gazed up at Sozin, who stood above him. Tall as any temple statue had seemed when he was a boy and just as remote and inscrutable.

Sozin’s fist curled against his chest. The wrinkles in his forehead etched themselves ever deeper into his skin. He ducked his head.

He didn’t reach out to take Roku’s hand. Instead, he said, softly as a serpent’s slither or a kiss of death, “Without you, all my plans are suddenly possible.”

Horribly, Roku knew that. Without his opposition as Avatar, there would be nothing preventing Sozin from realizing his awful dreams of conquest and colonization.

Perversely, as the light within him faded, he remembered like a candle in the dark midnight of his mind a time years ago yet somehow not that long ago when the two of them had laughed and joked as they dueled in palace courtyards bathed by orange sunrise, baked by the scorching sun of high-noon, or glowing in dusk pastels. A time when they had been brothers under the sun. On this volcano they had fought together, were they still brothers?

He saw that question--that paradox of being brothers and banes, best friends and bitter enemies, most powerful allies and most feared opponents--written all over Sozin’s anguished expression. “I have a vision for the future, Roku.”

A vision Roku could never be a part of and could never share. Both of them knew that. Both of them didn’t know whether that vision for the future mattered more to Sozin than Roku’s life.

Roku had spared Sozin’s life once in the throne room he had wrecked and saved Sozin again on the volcano tonight. Would Sozin return the favor in the name of the friendship and brotherhood they had once shared and maybe still shared?

Sozin’s blue dragon, Aoi, hatched from the same litter as Fang, swirled around Sozin, offering him the chance to mount her neck and soar away to safety. Aoi, as loyal to Sozin as Fang was to Roku, would do whatever Sozin commanded, and there was room on her back for both Roku and Sozin if Sozin just stretched out a hand to help him. To close the distance between them. To save him.

“We’re hatched from the same litter like Aoi and Fang.” Even with the rift that had divided them since that fateful day in the throne room when Roku had discovered the Fire Nation colonies Sozin had established in the Earth Kingdom and ordered Sozin to withdraw from them immediately, Sozin could somehow still read what was written on Roku’s heart like an open, unfurled scroll.

It was, Roku thought, strangely kind and inaccurate for Sozin to say this, because they weren’t actually hatched from the same litter at all. Sozin had been born a prince of the Fire Nation, and Roku had never been anything more than a royal ward, an orphan adopted from the children abandoned at the Fire Temples, before he learned that he was the Avatar’s latest incarnation.

“I can’t leave you here to die alone.” Sozin finally stretched out a hand to Roku, who took it and allowed his frail body to be guided onto Aoi’s spiked back. “I will save you because you spared my life in the throne room even though I know you will live to be my brother and my bane in the future.”

“As you lived to be mine.” Roku, on dragon back and flying away from the smoldering volcano that would have killed him, could breathe well enough to offer a grim joke.

“As I lived to be yours.” Sozin gave a short nod, and, although Roku couldn’t see his expression, he knew that Sozin would be unsmiling as stone.

The days of laughter between them had died with Sozin’s ambitions to conquer the world, and when laughter died, what remained between brothers and friends? Only sad memories and choking ash.

 

@Seldes_Katne Thank you so much for reading and commenting on this Roku Decathlon! The Fanfiction Summer Olympics was really kind to my muse for some reason. Maybe it was because many of the events have a short word requirement and that somehow felt less intimidating to me than longer stories, because my creativity had sort of been stuck in a rut before the Fanfiction Summer Olympics kickstarted it in a big way. With the Avatar stories, it especially helped that I have been re-watching that show lately and have become really obsessed with it and its characters. Plus I became really interested in exploring the Fire Nation before the Hundred Years War and in its aftermath, and when I become interested in something, sometimes my muse just goes overboard with writing. So my superpower is probably obsession

Ever since I first saw the flashbacks to Roku's past and especially how it intertwined with Sozin's, I was really fascinated by it (I think the best friends turned enemies is one of my favorite tropes because I just love the tragedy and drama of it) so I couldn't resist writing a Roku Decathlon and having the chance to really delve into his character and past. And I sort of enjoyed having the creative space to invent a lot of his life and backstory since we only get a limited amount of information from the show. The rest was left to my imagination, and I could really have fun with that!

It's funny that you mention how often I include a conversation with the spirit of a deceased person because I hadn't noticed that tendency and pattern myself, but now that you bring it up, I think you're right. I do often indulge a conversation with the spirit of a deceased person. I think it must on some level show how I am wrestling with that eternal question of what (if anything) happens when we die and if the spirit does outlive the body in some form and exploring that connection between past and present generations and between history and what is happening now. Sometimes I notice when I'm circling back to the same sort of questions in my writing, and sometimes my readers notice first, and that makes me discover something new about what I write and why. So, anyway, I think I do include that a lot, and it must be something that is spiritually fulfilling and cathartic to me. Also, I'm so glad you did enjoy Roku's conversation with Kyoshi. Kyoshi is a great character, so it was a treat to be able to include her in this story as an Avatar mentor to Roku.

I'm so happy that your favorite was the 4X100 relay since that story did have a special spot in my heart, and I was so proud of myself when I came up with the idea of structuring it around the four elements and the virtues associated with them and what Roku learned from each of the four elements. So to have that resonate so much with you is just awesome to hear as an author!

I don't have a ton of experience writing poetry but I figured I would try my hand at it, and it is so nice to know that you enjoyed the poem I included for the Water Polo Poetry event. Water is my favorite element in the real world (though in the Avatar universe, I developed a real soft spot for fire, haha, and I am a water sign in terms of astrology, so perhaps it is about "balance" as you say, and that is why I am fascinated by the fire element in Avatar). So I tried to connect with things that I love about water as well as with things that I thought might be different and cool about living in the North Pole and what Roku could learn from both, and then the poem was born. Which was great because I really wanted to include a story that specifically focused on his time with the Water Tribe, and what better event than Water Polo Poetry for that?

I'm so happy that you found all the stories entertaining, because I really did enjoy writing them and exploring more of what Roku's life might've been like. And it's nice to know that how obsessed I am with this world is showing in a good way in terms of my knowledge of the world and engagement with it in my writing.

If you own a Roku television, I totally understand why you would get a chuckle reading these stories.

So glad you got a laugh out of "A Train Ride Through Ba Sing Se." I really did love the trains in Ba Sing Se, so I couldn't resist giving them an "everything is bigger in Texas moment" plus including some friendly ribbing and rivalry between a citizen of the Earth Kingdom and one of the Fire Nation.

Thank you again for reading and for your kind words!