BOOGIE WONDERLAND

She huffed a little, watching the meerkat clearly get tired with her, accidentally hitting riiiight in the little girl's biggest insecurity: being a bother. Quirking an eyebrow with a pout, she was tempted to raise a veritable barricade of leaves and tree trunks and forbid Timon from seeing her big sister out of pure spite ! But ... Elsa was waiting, and she didn't want her to be angry with her ...

With a resigned sigh, she dropped her shoulders, looking a bit down, but relenting.

❝ I can't really let her know ... oh, I could ask Gale. Best I could do though is bring you guys to her - she's in the gardens. ❞

And the gardens were kind of her whole thing, truthfully. Revitalized, she skipped over to a window and pushed it open, leaning dangerously far out of it with her arms to the ground, focusing on the trees below ... which began to grow, and grow, and reach the window, to which she puffed up her chest, gesturing.

❝ Guests first ! Don't worry about the uh ... ❝ What animal even was he ?? ❞ ... big guy, I made the moss extra big to catch him, too ! You, me, and Olaf will climb down. ❞

This was beginning to feel like a test, one Timon had not signed up for and was taking way too long. Ughhh, he was starving. He knew he should've eaten something before they made the trek over here. Pumbaa had mentioned there were leftover worms but he passed them up, figuring they were in for a big meal at Elsa's place.

He really wasn't in the mood for this and he made a face, wondering when the kid--Elsa's sister?--was gonna stop giving him a hard time and take them to the queen. He motioned for Pumbaa to come along and he started to pick up the pace, Olaf trailing along beside him, still rambling about something or other.

"Oookay...whatever gets us there faster..."

He looked out the window, doing a double take at the tree, suddenly backing up into Pumbaa. Nope, he was not doing that. Not only was he tired from all that walking but with his luck, the branch would probably snap and he would wind up eating dirt.

"Ya know what? I've got a better plan!"

With that, Timon poked his head out the window and inhaled sharply.

When it's not good, it's...OOF.

For a few seconds, Timon's reply was only met with ... a very, very confused face. Then, a raise of eyebrows, and the girl looking at her hands, then Timon, then her hands, then Pumba for good measure, then back at Timon.

❝ Holy mackerel ... I can understand you ? I- I can under- I understood what you said ?? Like, for real, or am I going nuts ?? ❞ Maybe living in the woods really took a toll on her ...

TImon then claims to be a good friend of Elsa's, and Fly grins as if she won a contest, one little fist on her hip as she pointed at him.

❝ Well ! I'll have you know, I'm also Elsa's friend ! Well ... okay, maybe not - I'm her sister ! That's like ... better than a friend ! Wait- you were invited ? ❞ she rambles quickly, as fast as a child could without tripping over their words. ❝ That's not fair, how come she can invite animals over, but I got told off for smuggling in the squirrels .. ❞

"Look, we're kinda in a hurry," he said, shaking his head and glancing back at Pumbaa, hoping he was all caught up with Olaf. They had promised Elsa they would be there around lunch and the time was ticking away and he was getting a bit hangry...

It wasn't every day the Arendellian castle had visitors. Well ... it was more often than in the past, from what she'd heard from Elsa and Anna, but still ━ people didn't usually randomly come by for a health visit. Certainly not ... weird orange giant rats.

Timon's visit to the castle, today, was interrupted before it even began, by a small human girl, maybe around 12, staring at him with confusion and a stern determination to stand in the middle of his way. Then, after a few minutes, she spoke;

❝ Okay, so ━ I don't know if you can understand me, but. You gotta go back to wherever ya came from, okay ? I promised Anna I wouldn't drag random animals into the castle, and that's what you're doing ! You're random animal ... ing, all over the carpet ! I'll get in trouble again ! So, if you understand me ... shoo ! shoo ! ❞

Timon gave the little girl a deadpan look, shaking the snow out of his fur and shielding the flowers that he brought for Elsa, making sure that they didn't get ruined. Meanwhile, Pumbaa wasn't too far behind, chatting away with Olaf who had just bumped into him and was so ecstatic to see him again.

He didn't know what kind of day Jasmine had, (he could only presume that it stunk), but there was no reason to come at them like that. It wasn't like the bugs were crawling all over the place and even if one or two of them escaped, so what? He and Pumbaa could take care of them, no problem. It was then Timon noticed his companion was still flinching, as if he expected to get another earful, and he drew closer to him, nudging him again as if to say, Hey, I gotcha.

He didn't care if Jasmine yelled at him. Well, okay, he DID but it wasn't like he couldn't holler with the best of them. (Aside from Iago, Timon was probably the loudest fella that ever set foot in this palace.) Pumbaa, though? No, he wasn't gonna stand there and let him get chewed out in such a way, especially when he hadn't done anything wrong. ...What? The plants were already wilting before he got here. Besides, they were easy to replace. Maybe.

He started to climb up Pumbaa's head, ready to give his ears a tug and make a dramatic exit, pausing as the princess spoke to them again. Her voice had lost its harshness from before (at least for a moment there) and she seemed pretty remorseful. It didn't take a genius to figure out she was dealing with a lot and the incompetent guards were just the cherry on top but still...

Cue Mal and Evie singing Space Between and Timon and Pumbaa walking past the set.

Pumbaa: Awww... 🥹

Zuko's patience had always been a finite resource. Uncle liked to insist that working in the tea shop was teaching him serenity, that every difficult customer was another opportunity to cultivate balance. Zuko was beginning to suspect he was just saying that to keep him complacent.

He regarded the meerkat in silence for a long moment, ochre eyes as unreadable as polished amber glass. Somewhere in the back room, he could hear the faint clink of porcelain and the comforting scrape of a kettle being moved across the brazier. Normally, those sounds grounded him. Today, they merely reminded him there was work waiting to be done while one extraordinarily talkative customer seemed determined to occupy every spare moment of his afternoon.

“We serve tea,” he replied evenly. “Hot tea. That's what people come here for.” His tone remained polite, but there was a dryness to it that rivaled the weather outside. “If someone wants something cold, they're welcome to have water.”

The accusation that the shop's lack of ice was somehow suspicious earned him the faintest narrowing of his eyes. It wasn't irritation alone anymore. It was genuine confusion at the notion that a modest tea shop tucked into a corner of Ba Sing Se should somehow possess luxuries most of the Lower Ring didn't have access to.

“Ice doesn't exactly survive the trip from the poles,” he said. “And even if it did, it would cost more than most of our customers could afford.” Pao's wasn't a wealthy merchant's establishment. It served laborers, families, and neighbors who wanted a good cup of tea without emptying their coin purses. Imported ice would have been an absurd extravagance.

At the request for lime, Zuko glanced toward the shelves behind him as though hoping a citrus fruit might have materialized out of pity for his circumstances.

“We don't have limes, either. We have water. We have hot tea. Those are the options.”

"Oookay...but ya do see why somebody wouldn't want that right now, don't ya? Ya really oughta have more options in this place! Some fresh bugs would be nice too! Ya could put a bowl of crickets on every table! Believe me, that'd get lots of folks linin' up!"

Now he wanted some crickets as well. Of course, Zuko would probably grumble that they weren't on the menu and no, he wasn't gonna look in the back. It was just tea, tea, and more tea. With no ice because that was far too great of a request.

Apparently.

Never mind the fact that he was still thirsty and the weather wasn't doing his mood any favors. He wasn't particularly interested in hearing about the back and forth of the business or why ice was such a rarity around this area. The lack of limes was not surprising but still disappointing. He was about to ask if they had any lemons, then thought better of it, shaking his head.

you don't have to "prove" your character to anyone. the rpc isn't a courtroom and your readers aren't a jury. it's so easy to slip into the pitfall of defensive writing, trying to acquit your characters of tired tropes or safeguard them from being misinterpreted. "i swear she's still a strong female character though!" "it's okay, i promise she's demure and composed!"

you don't have to make your characters palatable.

you don't have to overcorrect or make them "appropriate", sanitized or declawed.

they're allowed to be nuanced, they're allowed to be messy, they're allowed to be multifaceted and wrong sometimes. they're allowed to not have everything fully formed.

you don't have to overwrite your character bios and leave nothing to the imagination, frying your brain at 3 am with "is this the way i want others to see my character?" "is this how my character would act in a room full of people?" "how do i want my peers to classify my character? STOP. breathe. it. doesn't. matter.

what matters is that you know your character, you're writing something beautiful because it's the story you want to tell and enjoy, and you have every right to do that without being so performative that you're being too hard on yourself.

you don't owe imaginary readers a perfectly polished version of what you think they're judging you for.

trust yourself as a writer to portray your character with justice.

trust the readers to see and pick up on the beautiful thing you're creating.

The little meerkat's voice had become little more than background noise somewhere between the story about the flamingo and the complaint about the weather.

Zuko stood behind the counter with the practiced stillness Uncle insisted every tea server should cultivate, though the tiny muscle in his jaw had begun to twitch ever so slightly.

The urge to simply hand over a cup and physically rotate the yappy critter toward the door became stronger with every passing second, and when when the request for iced tea finally emerged from the endless stream of chatter, Zuko seized upon it with the relief of a drowning man spotting dry land. “We don't serve iced tea.” He answered flatly and entirely unapologetic. “If you'd like cold water, I can bring you that.” Amber eyes lifted to meet Timon's only briefly before flickering toward the line forming behind him. “Otherwise, the jasmine has already finished steeping.”

Then came the comment about the air and Zuko's gaze drifted toward the open front of the tea shop, where the summer breeze was already drifting through the doorway.

“...The window is open,” a beat passed, “So is the door.”

What, did he want to set his customers on fire? Then again, it was Zuko sooo...probably. He made a face at the offer of water. He could get that any ol' time, he was hoping for something with a little more flavor. He had a feeling that lemonade was outta the question too.

Where the heck was Iroh anyway? At least he would've appreciated the story about the flamingo. Hmm...maybe he was on break. He couldn't blame him for that. Even with the open window (and door), this place was pretty stuffy. Between the heat and Zuko's attitude, no wonder they hadn't gotten much business today.