#baatarjrweek

Day 5: Betrayal

(Sorry I just have this one matching drawing🥲)

It's been a while but we are back in business Baatar Jr Fam!!

It's unfortunate that we must announce this, but due to the amount of waning support we've had with the last set of submissions, this will be the final baatarjrweek that we will be hosting.

So, if you would like to be a part of this last-ditch effort to give Baatar Jr some love in the TLOK fandom, please consider sending in submissions from April 23rd thru April 29th :}

You can post work early or late, all submissions are accepted > be sure to use #baatarjrweek in your tags. Late submissions will be accepted until May 5th.

Here are the topics:

Day 1: New Beginnings

Day 2: Patience

Day 3: Regret

Day 4: Family Ties

Day 5: Five Years Later...

Day 6: Puppy Love

Day 7: One Last Time

*As always, NFSW content is allowed (just be sure not to tag the work as NFSW)

good morning~

@baatarjrweek: love

For Baatar Jr. Week (Day 6: Power) @baatarjrweek

When Tai was born, Toph had planted her feet in his general direction and declared him an earthbender, though his powers didn’t manifest until four years later. When Avani learned to crawl, she bore labyrinthine tunnels through the gardens and it took Kuvira’s seismic sense to find her in them, always caked in dirt and with moonflowers enmeshed in her hair. And when Priya’s peals of laughter split the air, his wife’s steel bracelets rattled like wind chimes, the metal singing in response to their infant daughter’s jubilation. 

When Baatar’s mother called them thrice blessed with prodigies, Kuvira’s face glowed with pride—while Baatar suppressed an eye roll—and when she fell pregnant again, the matriarch made no secret of her wish for a fourth earthbending grandchild. 

But Jae’s infancy came and went without any sign of a capacity for bending revealing itself. “Wait and see,” Kuvira had said, and “Give it time,” his mother advised, but years passed, and despite the family’s unceasing interventions, Jae was never able to make so much as a pebble move. 

Written for Baatar Jr Appreciation Week Day 4: Expectations

---

Chew with your mouth closed. Sit up straight.

Study.

Don't speak unless spoken to. Wear your best clothes. Always be professional.

Study.

Say "please" and "thank you." Wash your hands and comb your hair. Tidy up your room, and always, always, treat a lady with respect.

That was all. That was his life in a nutshell. For him, at least. The firstborn son to the wealthy Zaofu matriarch and her brilliant husband, who rarely, if ever, can keep much of a conversation. It wasn't enough that Suyin named him after his father; he was practically the spitting image of him too. A replica, perhaps. An exact, carbon copy who did nothing besides sit in his room all day reading books filled with numbers and symbols, only to occasionally have the opportunity to walk outside for twenty minutes or so to get a bit of fresh air.

He takes in a huge whiff through his nostrils. Ah, yes....this is better.... The scent of the moon flowers sprouting up in his mother's flower bed beyond the meteorite garden filled his senses. Spring was finally here. Most people didn't realize, or even had the slightest knowledge of how cold it could actually get in Zaofu during the winter time. When you live right next to a large mountain range, anything can-

And there she was.

The beauty that fell from the heavens to his doorstep just a few years ago; she was practically a gift. And what luck had Raava bestowed upon him to have such a lovely Earth Kingdom flame in his presence. What would he have given to be with her for the rest of his life.....

But she wasn't rich. She had no family and she didn't come from money. Two big "no-noes" from mother. Su was doing her a favor - letting her stay under her roof until she made the decision to go on her own once she came of age. Given that she wasn't doing so hot getting along with the Beifongs, except for Baatar of course, it was inevitable at this point.

Kuvira.... A name so sweet, yet so potent with power. How could someone, as beautiful as her, get dumped on the side of the road? She definitely was a feisty one, he had to admit. At first, she was skeptical of him, not knowing whether or not he'd push her away just as his sister had. All it took was a small piece of an egg custard tart that he stole from the kitchen to give to her upon finding her crying outside in the meteorite garden on her first night at the estate to make her trust him.

They were close, but still had to keep their distance from each other somewhat so Su wouldn't get any wrong ideas. In her eyes, Kuvira was an unsuitable bride. She was just a restless child with a whole lot of strength and ambition that needed to be nurtured. Suyin wanted all her children to fall in love and have offspring of their own, but only with the right people.

"Jr.! Jr., shouldn't you be studying right now?!" His mother shouts in a stern voice as she walks briskly towards him. Baatar whips his head around in fright. She didnt seem amused in the slightest. "Also, your father has been looking everywhere for you! What're you doing out-" She looks beyond him out into the flower bed and spots the very person he was gawking at. Shaking her head in disapproval, Su then grabs her son by the ear and drags him back into the house.

As soon as they reached her study, she plopped him down onto the chair in front of her desk and started barking at him. "You know better! I told you to stay away from her Jr.! She's my pupil - not your love interest! And I hope you haven't kissed her yet?!"

Baatar let out a deep sigh. "No Mother. I haven't. And besides, I'm thirteen. Why can't I kiss a girl?"

"She's not your type! I'm afraid she'll only hurt you...."

"Why can't I be the judge of that?"

"Because you're too young to understand what love truly is!" She caught her breath immediately as she watched her husband walk in through the brass doors of her study.

He looked completely confused at the situation already taking place. "Su? What's going on here? I heard yelling. Is everything alright?" Baatar silently thanked the Spirits for his father's presence, saving him from his mother's temperament.

She regained her composure before responding to his questions. "Everything's fine Baatar. No need to worry. I've got it all under control. Jr. here was just getting a little distracted with things other than his studies...." She eyeballs her son with that "I'm not taking any of your shit" look she usually threatened people with.

All her husband could say was "Oh," before turning his attention toward his son, seeming a bit troubled, but skeptical of his behavior. "Jr., is this true? We talked about this, didn't we?" There was that awkward moment of silence again; anytime his father changed the inflection of his voice, Baatar knew he was bound to be in deep shit. Probably one of the scariest things he's ever encountered in his entire life so far was Baatar Sr. getting upset. Violently upset. He's only ever been yelled at by him once. The first being a couple years ago when he accidentally broke one of the models for his father's maglev project that he'd been working on for a long time. Su tended to get angry and go haywire more often than not, but at the end of the day, it was nothing compared to the level of crazy his father could get. Underneath that usually calm, tranquil exterior, a madman laid dormant.

Baatar looked away from him and frowned. "Yes Father. We have."

"Then why don't you listen to us Jr.?"

"You know we have rules." Su piped in.

"And we expect you to follow them. We're trying to prepare you for the real world. Your schooling is important." His father continued.

"We want you to go to Ba Sing Se University. It's what we always wanted for you. It's your destiny." There she goes, adding more fuel to the fire now. Does she ever stop talking?

"I'm sorry if you have to stay in your room all the time, but it pays off. Trust me. You'll learn more from me than some of those teachers at a regular school. I just wish you'd appreciate the opportunity you have here more."

"You're a smart boy. You'll succeed and do well. You just need to show us that you care just as much as we do." But what if I don't care? Where's my opinion come into play? It's not fair. Why can't they just let me do whatever I want sometimes? Opal, Huan, and the twins don't have to deal with this pressure. So why do I? I wish they'd just listen to me sometimes for Raava's sake! It's like they don't care! It's always about what they want! Why should I have to live up to Dad’s legacy?!

Infuriated, Baatar Jr. jolts up from his seat and walks right out of his mother's study, returning to his own room. Slamming the door behind him, and now in the recluse that his small, dim-lit box-shaped bedroom offered him, he takes a deep breath in through his nostrils and out again. After about a moment or two of total silence, he then commenced his release of all that anger and frustration bottled up inside him from all the years gone by, throwing his books and graphing paper and other academic resources out of the window. Loose-leafs with small design sketches and multiple equations on them were all crumpled up into a ball and thrown this way and that across the room. Knick-knacks on his work desk were cast aside as well, without even thinking twice about them in the first place - things that he didn't intentionally mean to chuck at the walls behind him but did anyway out of sheer rage.

Just when he was in the middle of his existential crisis, he heard a soft knock at his door. Baatar placed his desk chair back down to its proper place after coming so close to wanting to throw that across the room as well, and went over to meet his unexpected visitor. Upon opening the door, he came face-to-face with his little sister. She bends her head to the side slightly to get a better visual of the state his room was in, causing him to blush with embarrassment in the process. “Opal,” he began, “What are you doing here? Do you need anything?” He scratches his head a bit, not sure of how he should go about explaining to his younger sibling how his room got that way in the first place. 

"How come you're making all that noise in your room? Are you upset? What happened?" She questions in curiosity. There was almost no point in explaining his predicament to her; she wouldn't really understand what he was going through. She was only nine years old anyway. And what were the odds that she'd leave right at this moment to holler down the hall for their parents' attention? She'd cause a frenzy saying things like "Big brother trashed his room," or "Big brother is really angry and I think he needs help." In a way, Opal was just like her mother - always making a big deal out of everything. Then again, that bad temperament seemed to run in the family. But no, Jr.....sweet, sweet, intelligent little Jr., wasn't allowed to show his emotions or get angry like a normal person would, because he was supposed to be just like his father - a man so calm and collected it seemed as if he had little to no emotion at all. Just sit back and keep quiet. Do what your father does. Maybe if you don't make much of a scene and stay behind him in his shadow all the time, no one will notice you and question your ability to earthbend or not. The embarrassment and the wierd stares aren't needed. It makes mother look bad to important visitors and guests. We wouldn't want that, now would we?

As much love and affection Baatar understood that his mother had for his father, he still couldn't understand why she expected so much out of him - to be the second Baatar in her life. It was practically maddening.

Sometimes he wished he could just run away from it all. Run away from all the money and the family clout that barred him from having the opportunity to show others who he really was on the inside; his true worth and true self. For one day, all he wants is to be free. Free from the bondage of his books, free from being overcast by his father's shadow, free from all the guilt of not being good enough, free from the frustration of not being a bender burning on his mother's conscience, and free from all the outlandish displays of perfection and lies this city seemed to boast under all that metal.

It was all a facade. A facade to not only make his mother look good and eliminate all the sketchy shit she'd done on the side lines, but to uphold the Beifong reputation; and with that reputation, came great expectations. As the firstborn son of a renowned architect and the queen of a thriving city-state and heiress to an enormous fortune, he was expected to carry on that legacy, or at least, support it. Suyin wouldn't want the title of "matriarch" to fade away just because she handed over the throne to a man; she had her own legacy to protect as well. Why would she pass on her role as leader to a boy who couldn't even earthbend and wasn't a female in general? No, such an honor had to be bestowed at least upon his sister, if no one else. Then again, he knew very well that she had doubts about that too. Her hushed whispers behind a locked door at night with his father made it seem so.

So then, what was his purpose? To act as a living reminder of who and what Baatar Beifong Sr. was, once he was dead and gone off to the Spirit World? To carry on a legacy that his father had already started and cemented into the history books?

No, he had to forge his own path. Not play the puppet on someone else's strings. Someday, he'll make his mark on the world, by doing something no one's ever done before. He was smart just like his father - a natural-born inventor - but he'd be better at it.

@baatarjrweek

Behind his shadow

“…Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful? Will you still love me when I got nothing but my aching soul?… I know you will”