Story [Avatar:The Last Airbender] Vegetables before Ash Banana Pudding (Zuko and Izumi Oneshot)

Title: Vegetables before Ash Banana Pudding

Author: devilinthedetails

Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender/Legend of Korra

Characters: Zuko; Izumi; Mai; Iroh.

Genre: General; Family; Fluff; Mush.

Summary: In which Zuko induces a stubborn Izumi to finish her vegetables before eating her ash banana pudding.

Author's Note: Written for the Jim Gentry Mini-Challenge by @DarthIshtar in which my assigned word every parent should say to their child was "we." Thank you for the family-focused inspiration!

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Vegetables before Ash Banana Pudding

Fire Lord Zuko, his wife Mai, and four-and-a-half-year-old daughter Izumi (she insisted on being credited for the half rotation around the sun stubbornly as she did everything else at this age) were dining in private. Eating at a small, shining mahogany table as they watched the sun set over the red roofs and gold squares of Caldera City spread beneath the open windows like a tapestry.

Izumi was doing a wonderful job, Zuko noted with the keen eyes of a father, of picking her way resolutely through her dish of ginger–spiced udon noodles. Deftly lifting the lumps of crab out with her chopsticks while pointedly nudging aside the needle-thin slices of cabbage and carrot interspersed throughout the noodles.

She was going through a stage, Zuko knew, where she had to be cajoled and tricked into eating her vegetables. Fruits were fine–presumably because they were sweet and commonly found in desserts–but vegetables were to be avoided at all costs.

His mind cast back to a week ago. When he, Mai, and Izumi had been visiting Uncle Iroh in the Earth Kingdom. He and Uncle Iroh had been sipping a batch of cool and refreshing kombucha tea in the apartments above his uncle’s flourishing tea shop while Mai and Izumi fed the slow-swimming koi fish in the pond of his uncle’s garden.

“She’s stubborn,” Zuko had remarked. Watching his daughter laugh as she fed the koi with Mai. Joy and pride singing in his own heart. “Like her mother.”

“And her father,” Uncle Iroh had commented with a twinkle of mirth in his eyes.

“Like her father,” Zuko had agreed grudgingly.

“Try to use ‘we’ when you speak to her,” his uncle had suggested. “Not ‘you.’ Using ‘we’ makes you sound united. Like a team working to achieve common goals. Using ‘you’ makes it sound as if you are ordering her about or accusing her.”

“That is wise advice.” Zuko had inclined his head. Having at last learned how to listen to his uncle’s guidance without bristling and argument. Perhaps a form of wisdom in itself.

He experimented with implementing his uncle’s child-rearing advice now. Ate a bite of udon noodles well-studded with sliced cabbage and carrots. Explaining to his daughter as he did so, “We have to eat our vegetables. They are good for our skin and bones.”

“But they don’t taste good.” Izumi paused in munching mounds of crab meat long enough to gaze skeptically at the cabbage and carrots she had separated so meticulously from the rest of her meal. “They taste bad and are very chewy.”

“If we eat them,” Zuko went on, trying to sweeten the deal, “we can have our ash banana pudding afterward.”

“Ash banana pudding is one of my favorite desserts.” Izumi’s eyes, gold as the squares of Caldera City, lit with interest.

“I know.” Zuko smiled at her. “It’s one of my favorites too.”

“We could have a race.” The gleam in Izumi’s eyes was competitive now. Nothing incited her appetite like a challenge apparently. “The winner gets to eat the loser’s ash banana pudding.”

Zuko agreed to the stakes. Allowed his daughter to win while not seeming to do so. Surrendered his cup of ash banana pudding to her and watched her devour it as well as her own with satisfaction, knowing that she had eaten her cabbage and carrots with minimum argument. His uncle’s “we” tactic did indeed seem to have some merits in managing stubborn children. He would have to employ it more often.

 

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha Thank you so much for reading and commenting on all my Avatar stories The Fire Nation has some really picturesque architecture in their capital city in terms of the red roofs and golden squares, and that was my inspiration for the setting of this story, so I am so thrilled that you adored the setting here! I'm so glad that you thought the meal sounded scrumptious even with the cabbage and carrots I must admit that I was getting a rumbly stomach writing about that food since I do love crab. Iroh's tactic and advice definitely worked for Zuko, and Izumi didn't end up feeling pressured to eat her vegetables. She just embraced it as a competition she wanted to win to earn some extra ash banana pudding (and who can blame her since ash banana pudding sounds yummy indeed?)

@DarthIshtar Thank you so much for reading and commenting and for the prompt that inspired this bit of family oriented fluff in the first place Izumi and Zuko have a special spot in my heart, so I'm happy to hear that you loved the characters that I chose to focus on for this piece. I think Iroh is a wise man with a great understanding of human nature, and it was so nice to be able to showcase that in this story in terms of the guidance he was able to pass along to his nephew. And I very much head canon Zuko as a good daddy to Izumi having learned from Iroh about what to do to be a good father figure and from Ozai what not to do as a father so it was lovely to be able to show off Zuko's good daddy skills in this vignette

 

@earlybird-obi-wan Thank you so much for reading and commenting! I'm so thrilled to hear that loved this piece! Children can definitely be fussy with their food but Zuko had an excellent strategic use by "we" that helped in a fun way to persuade Izumi to eat her vegetables!

 

@Chyntuck As always, thank you so much for reading and reviewing

I agree the advice in Ish's prompt to use "we" when speaking with children is very wise for parents and for people who interact with children on a regular basis in general, and I'm so happy to hear that you felt I was able to integrate the prompt into this story so well! Uncle Iroh does indeed have a most wonderful reputation for being a wise elder, and it is always a joy for me to capture and convey that in my works And this time I was most proud of Zuko for finding such a clever and fun way to implement that advice with his daughter!

Izumi warmed my heart with her cuteness in this fic, and I'm so thrilled you were able to get such a picture of her eating her noodles with her chopsticks, carefully puling all the vegetables to one side and enjoying all the delicious pieces of crab!

And I could not imagine a greater compliment than that my A:TLA stories always make you picture a Chinese silk landscape painting

Thank you again for the kind words that made my week!