Posted in full at:
http://ift.tt/1MnAcmb at October 31, 2015 at 01:51PM
liz-squids:
@actualmermaid tagged me!
In no particular order because I just finished tidying up my GoogleDrive so there are old fics at the top because they were the last to move.
I like to interpret “first line” as “first line or whatever seems to make the most sense and produce a good effect, eh, I’m not the meme police.”
*
The first time Pema met Lin Beifong, Beifong had a black eye and blood streaming down her face from a cut on her cheek.
*
“Tenzin.”
She hardly recognised him, lean and hollow-cheeked, greying hair pulled into a short ponytail. He was clad in faded greys and blues, and if not for his pallor and the tattoos he could not quite hide, she might have mistaken him for his brother.
*
“They’ve seen us,” Beifong hissed. “Run.”
Mako didn’t need to be told twice. He could hear them giving chase, but when he turned to see where they were, Kita swept up a dagger of oily water from the gutter and threw it at him. He stumbled, pain blooming in his shoulder and chest, but Beifong grabbed him, keeping him upright.
It had been drizzling all night, but now, at the worst possible time, it started to rain in earnest. Beifong pulled him into a narrow alley and said, “Did they see your face?”
*
The morning of the trial, they brought her uniform. Lin dressed slowly, appreciating the feel of real clothes on her skin instead of a rough prison jumpsuit.
It wasn’t quite the uniform she remembered. The cable spools on the back had been removed, along with the metal bands on the sleeves and legs. Even the buttons had been replaced with bakelite.
Phuong, her lawyer, if she were here, would frown and say it was an insult, a demonstration of distrust. Lin’s only reaction was disappointment. After eight months in this glass-and-wood-and-bakelite cell, it would have been nice to touch metal again.
“General Beifong? Are you ready?”
*
Huan liked to think that his creativity peaked between the hours of midnight and four in the morning. He worked outside, inasmuch as any of Zaofu could be said to be outside at night. At least it never rained, and his projects were always returned to their wooden plinths before the sprinkler system was activated at four-fifteen.
His mother complained about the wet, grassy footprints leading from the back door to his bedroom, but affectionately. She liked that he had a passion, and anyway, she wasn’t the one cleaning the floors.
*
If anyone had asked, Bumi would have said the days were long past when he had to worry about interrupting his baby brother in the middle of a romantic moment. Years past. Decades past.
No one had asked him, and no one had warned him, either, that there was a risk of (embarrassing, highly awkward) interruption, or that someone (presently lifting her head from Tenzin’s chest and giving Bumi a death glare) might go around rearranging the terrain on Air Temple Island in the middle of the night.
*
Zaofu, Pema decided, was a big, metallic, flower-shaped oasis.
It was the perfect refuge after the nightmare of everything that happened at the Northern Air Temple. A modern, well-equipped hospital for Korra and Tenzin, an efficient security force if the remnants of the Red Lotus tried again, and Su Beifong’s personal estate had more than enough room to hold the various refugees – airbenders, Mako and Bolin’s family, Korra’s family … Meelo.
*
Prince Wu didn’t stay on Air Temple Island for long after the revelation that the Avatar was missing. He declared the dinner boring and set out for a nightclub, promising Mako a cocktail that would taste like his head was on fire, but in a good way. Mako gave Lin a pleading look as he left. She ignored it.
*
“Look at that storm!” Meelo shouted.
*
Bumi waited until Tenzin and his kids had vanished into the crowd before he said, “So I’ve been seeing Lin, sort of. Informally.”
Kya said, “By ‘seeing’, do you mean ‘sleeping with’?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Bumi,” she said, “that is such a bad idea.”
*
I tag … look, just do the meme if you want to. Say I forced you if you need an excuse.
Tags:and dreamwidth, (reblogging so it hits my DW)
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