#nanoficmo

For Zutara Week: Sweet

Inspired by this fanart from @pineapple-frenzy

Sweet and Sour

All week, the counselors had left for the night together in a big, laughing herd. On Friday, though, people took off early as they finished preparing their areas, ready for the first batch of campers to arrive on Monday.

So when Katara hiked up from the lake, she found the Four Nations camp empty. 

She wasn't shocked. Aang and Toph had both texted her that they were done, and did she want her to wait for them. She'd sent back denials both times. She had a lot to do in the boathouse and she didn't want to keep either of her friends. 

Iroh had sent out a text to everyone that he'd had to go attend to an emergency, and they should lock up their own areas and turn the keys in at the office when they were done. 

Iroh Sozin was one of the summer people, who lived in the big fancy houses on the east side of the lake, drove shiny cars, and spent so much money in just three months of the year that townies could live on it for the other nine. Everyone had expected him to build a bigger, fancier house when he'd inherited a huge chunk of land. But he'd shocked the town of Watertribe when he'd announced that he was going to use it for a summer camp. 

Because I mcfreakin' love outsider POV.

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A New Day

Before he went down to the kitchens to get the prince's breakfast tray, Guoliang paused to look out at the great courtyard that had held yesterday's dramatic Agni Kai. 

Scorch marks everywhere. Whole patches of wall burnt clear through. Fallen tiles, dried watermarks on paving stones - it would take days to clean it all up. They'd be lucky to get it back in usable condition before the coronation.

He shook his head slowly. He'd never thought he would see Princess Azula beaten at anything, and even less had he thought Prince Zuko would be the one to administer the beat-down. 

Well, Prince Zuko and the water tribe girl.

When he'd first seen the little slip of a thing, in her simple blue dress and loose, wild hair, he'd wondered why Prince Zuko had brought her just to be turned into a charred lump of corpse. Poor thing couldn't be a day over sixteen. But she had fought at Zuko's side and both of them had come out the victors.

He'd never known waterbenders could fight like that. Almost as ferocious as fire. 

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Cards on the Table

When Jyn stepped into the cantina, she spotted Cassian across the room. He was at a sabacc table with three other people, none of whom she knew. 

He'd dropped her a line asking for a retrieval, so she'd left the rendezvous point and headed across town to extract him from whatever situation he was in. He was getting better about that.

He looked up at her - he'd taken a seat with his back to the corner and facing the door, as he always did. He broke out in a big, sweet smile that shocked her almost to a stop. 

Stop that, she scolded herself, weaving her way across the room. Stop noticing your partner like he's more than your partner. 

It had been two years since Scarif. They'd been working together off and on all that time, and not once had he indicated he wanted to be more than partners in rebellion, partners in espionage, partners in the fight. 

Just because she thought about it constantly - 

Stop it. 

At the table, all of the men except Cassian were smoking some kind of cigars with a thick, too-sweet smoke. Jyn held her breath against it. "Here you are," she said peevishly. "Been looking all over for you."

He beamed up at her. "This is Jyn," he announced. "Isn't she beautiful?"

Uh.

Okay, then. 

I was reading the Tumblr story about swan-wives and how idiotic that would be when you take actual swan behavior into account, and I got an inescapable image of Jyn. And Cassian going :heart eyes: as she beats the shit out of some idiot.

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The Swan-Wife

The fair was in full swing as Cassian made his way through the crowd. He'd gone through the main thoroughfare and was now exploring the offshoots, the booths set up along the edges and the quieter fringes of the fair.

Ahead of him, there was a tent with various animals painted on it - bears and foxes and cats. The largest animal was a swan, snow-white and graceful. He studied it curiously.

A small commotion erupted inside the tent, and then a man dragged a blond girl in a long white dress out of the front flap. "I know you're one," he said. "You're coming with me, girl."

"Jyn!" the girl wailed. "Jynnnn!"

A small, dark-haired woman, dressed in a green tunic and brown leggings, burst through the tent flap. "Hey! What do you think you're doing? You lost, bucko!"

"She has to be one! Just look at her! And she's coming with me!"

"She's not!" Jyn shouted back. "And even if she was, you've got no right to her! Now let her go!" She swung a hefty club at the man's elbow, and it landed with an ominous crack. The man let out a howl of pain, his hand springing open.

The girl in the white dress ducked behind Jyn, shaking. Clutching his wounded elbow, he made a lunge for the girl again. 

Jyn planted her boot in his groin, and he folded like a clothes rack. 

For @andorerso because she went and posted that post where they looked all sexy and castaway. So this is all her fault if you think about it.

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Distraction

The rain hammering on the hull woke Cassian. Next to him, Jyn mumbled and rolled over. He leaned over to kiss her shoulder, then tossed the blanket aside. After fishing around for some clean-ish clothes, he went up into the cockpit to check the systems. 

Hyperdrive - dead. 

Life support - dead.

Hull - compromised.

Communications - still working. Still broadcasting. No messages received.

Everything the same as it was yesterday, then. 

For Zutara Week 2024: Dusk

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What's in a Name?

Dusk fell early in the South Pole this time of year. Zuko had been here for a month, but it still threw him off-kilter to see the sun riding the horizon before they were even setting the table for dinner. He hustled inside the Chief's big central tent and flicked his fingers at the firepit to make the coals glow. 

"Hey," his father-in-law said. "Careful with the fuel there, you northern flame lily."

"Just trying to thaw out," Zuko said

"Wrap another scarf around that head of yours," Hakoda suggested, looping one around his neck and grinning at him. "What's that make, four?"

"Ha, ha," Zuko said, biting back a smile. But he did wrap the scarf over his ears.

Every day in November, I'll be posting a one-shot to AO3 and linking it here. I like to start writing early so I can get a head start. 

Send me prompts! Here's a list to get you started, and I'll be posting more prompt lists as the weeks go on. Do me a solid and copy the whole prompt into your ask, not just a number.

I'll also take random prompts, not from a list. I like weird AUs, I like missing moments or different perspectives from canon, I like all sorts of things. I may do smut. I like shippy fic but I also like to explore other kinds of relationships (parent/child, siblings, friendship, enemies, etc) 

I don't promise to write every single prompt I get, but I'll sure take a crack at it. This month is for me to challenge myself with writing a lot of words but also actually finishing stories. 

I'll take:

Star Wars, specifically Rogue One/Andor, but I'll take OT and ST prompts too (ships: rebelcaptain and bix/brasso)

Jane Austen, for the six major novels (canon ships)

And new this year, I'm taking AtLA prompts (ship: Zutara). Let it be known that I never read any of the comics or supplemental novels, and I fizzled out on LoK, so I'm really just working off the original show. 

Ohhhhh the expression I made when I got this prompt! I juggled it around in my head for a day or two and finally settled on . . . this. 😀

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One Fighter with a Sharp Stick

“Right,” Jyn said, finishing up her text. “We’re going to Chelsea.”

The girl hunched up next to her on the cement lip of the large window looked up. In the harsh light of the all night curry takeaway behind them, she looked young and scared. Hair straggled out of her triple-bun hairdo and she clutched a broken stick like a teddy bear. “Chelsea? What’s in Chelsea?”

“The guys we’re gonna see,” Jyn said briefly, reaching down to grab her arm. “Come on.” 

The girl dug in her heels. "I'm not going anywhere," she said. "Look, thanks for helping me out and all, lady - "

"Jyn," she said. 

"Jyn," the girl conceded. "But I've got to get going home."

"Have you?" Jyn said, looking her up and down. 

Her jeans were barely holding together, and the t-shirt under her grungy jacket might have been white once, but it never would be again. And not to put too fine a point on it, her body odor would have knocked a rhinoceros out at twenty paces.  

"Got a home, then?" Jyn said coolly. "A real one?"

The girl hesitated, her eyes darting away.

"Didn't think so."