#ta ming

For @crookedmouth-mountainbones, a commission by the ever-talented @sooz-art who happily obliged with another masterpiece.

Crooked is one of the best fandom citizens I've ever had the pleasure of sharing weird spaces with, and their Tarot Card art of Lu Da inspired me to place their OC Ta Ming among the cards as well.

We went through a lot of ideas for Ta Ming because Ta Ming is a walking basket of layers and contradictions herself. A loyal Fire Nation soldier who is not strictly of the Fire Nation herself. A straight-laced and dedicated servant who consorts with pirates and brigands and considers a dockside brothel her home. A wanderer with deep ties to her family - family that is not of her blood, and yet whom she'd die for without question.

Yet the Knight of Pentacles seems to transcend circumstances to focus on duty. Knights are practical, reliable, stoic, hardworking and conservative. Reversed, the Knight can indicate both laziness or irresponsibility (something Ta Ming would abhor) and workaholism (which is her at her worst), as both get in the way of keeping one's eyes on the mission and doing what needs to be done.

The Knight of Pentacles are shown with a means of transport but, unlike other Knights, are surrounded with visions of home and fruitfulness rather than far-flung adventure. Wherever the Knight of Pentacles may toil they are motivated not by their own wanderlust but by the belief that their efforts are worth it to those they love. The single coin they hold in their hands are riches they will not spend unwisely.

(Please share a headcanon, a preview of a wip, or anything else you'd like and pass it on!)

Oops, sorry for missing this one! I see your Trick-or-Treat and raise you a Naughty or Nice. 😉

Intercepting her, Rizo slung a lanky arm around her shoulders. She stiffened slightly.

“Hey, soldier! How ya been?” he grinned. “Wasn’t expecting t’see you here tonight, and dressed so fancy.” Before she could form a reply, he redirected. “Any chance you’re sailing aboard our Mistress again soon?”

“Well, that’s… difficult to say,” Ta Ming answered, starting forward in hopes his arm might slide off. Instead, he matched his stride to hers. “The Fire Lord determines which missions I assist abroad and which closer to home,” she continued, then added, “Though I admit, I may have had my fill of the open seas for a while.”

“Not enough of Lu Da, apparently.” He said it so casually, the air so noisy, it took a moment to sink in. 

Ta Ming stopped. With a shrewd wink, Rizo slid his arm away, leaving her blinking in a flare of heat. She opened her mouth—to say what, she didn’t know—when a burst of cheers cut her off.

“Should’ve gone with your gut, Rizo!” someone jeered.

“Ah, burning piss,” he muttered, glancing back before jerking his head toward the commotion. “Come on.”

She followed him through the sweaty throngs to a clearing, where a jubilant handler waved a scorpion rat aloft, the crowd cheering as coins changed hands amid curses and triumphant laughter. Rizo groused as he tossed a pocketful of silver toward a gloating brute. 

“This place is bleedin’ me dry,” he grumbled, and then something else that was lost to the swell of a louder, bawdier song, voices ringing out in discordant harmony. 

The scene buzzed, but the atmosphere tipped into something sharper as Lu Da’s voice reached her. Even in this chaotic din, there was that familiar shift, a charge moving through the crowd when he was near. Ta Ming knew exactly where he was, even before she saw him.

He was joined now by two more crewmates—his quartermaster Marik, and Jinze, whose vague frown suggested he knew who his captain was searching for. 

Lu Da’s gaze swept the crowd, sliding past her, blurred by the haze of smoky lanternlight and the tavern’s restless churn. But Jinze’s eyes locked with hers, briefly, through a shifting gap. 

As always, the flint of his gaze and the guarded set of his jaw said what he wouldn’t aloud—he didn’t care for her. A deep-seated superstition about women aboard ships, Lu Da had once explained, one that she’d come to personify the more frequently she sailed on missions. It was nothing personal, and he’d get over it.

Whatever getting over it was supposed to look like, she had her doubts. 

Jinze broke away in the opposite direction, and Marik cast him a curious glance before looking around. As they drifted closer, Lu Da sang the rowdy chorus with gusto, “The rogue was made of fire, and the guard was made of ice, and when they took to bed one night, he made her melt not once but tw—”

His voice tripped mid-verse as he found her, two cups of liquor sloshing precariously in his hands. The knowing grin he flashed was a confession in itself, and she shook her head.

“So that’s where my nephew heard it,” she said. “Guowei’s been singing the song for days, Jhu Lin even received a letter from his school.” Despite it, Ta Ming felt the corner of her mouth twitch as she fought to keep her expression stern. “You, Pirate King, are a very bad influence.”

“Believe it or not,” a rakish glint as he pressed a drink into her hand, clinking the side of his own against it, “I’ve heard that before.”

With booming fanfare, the announcer’s voice rang out again, calling for bets to be placed as a row of tiny hedgehog boars shuffled into position. Their stubby little legs were an amusing contrast to their spiky armor and the fierceness of their expressions.

Time off

When they’re not busy doing whatever things pirates and soldiers do, Lu Da and Ta Ming might wind up in a pub in a Fire Nation colony together.

For @crookedmouth-mountainbones​ and @moonsugar-and-spice​, whose OCs I stole borrowed for this; Lu Da belongs to Moonsugar, Ta Ming to Crooked. 👀

Hope you like it! Also, happy birthday, fren!💖💖

For Rinna.

Lots of talk about your boy and an old associate of his from the Fire Nation.

How does that make you feel?

6/10. Three words drumming a confused, dissonant beat in her chest.  Fire. Nation. Soldier. It doesn't reach her expression, vaporized by the breath she inhales through her nose.

The tea shop cocoons you in honeyed hues, the air infused with the aroma of freshly steeped jasmine. Rinna cradles a porcelain cup in her fingers, her thumb gliding gently along the interlacing patterns. At the question, her mouth opens, half-closes again, her gaze drifting as if she might light upon the words that elude her.

“I think I could answer this five different ways, and they would all be true,” she muses. Another pause. The murmurs around you rush in to fill it. “Her name has come up a few times. I know it’s been years since he’s seen her and that he might never again, and I can tell that this pains him. I also know she’s still important to him and might always be, even if he's never said so explicitly. It’s obvious that whatever connection they had was profound and unique to them.”

The shop door opens, a breeze teasing a strand of chestnut hair loose. Rinna brushes it back behind her ear, a gesture both tender and resolute.

“Jealousy is not a shade I like to wear. It’s unbecoming on anyone, if I’m honest. But, such matters are delicate. She is a chapter in his story. I want to be a partner who approaches situations like these from a place of empathy and understanding. People have pasts, and the past shapes who we are. It’s only natural for it to intertwine with the present, that Lu Da would have shared intimate moments, experiences and connections, with someone before his path crossed mine.”

She takes a contemplative breath, her deep brown eyes tracing the intricate weave of a tapestry on the wall.

“Does that mean the talk of them doesn’t fan the tiniest spark of jealousy or any of its friends within me? I’d be lying if I said otherwise. It’s human nature, isn’t it? To feel a pang of possessiveness, even when you know it's irrational. And unfair,” she adds. “I don’t own Lu Da, just as he doesn’t own me. But our love isn’t fragile. I don’t feel threatened by ghosts from his past when what matters is the here and now. Our connection, our chemistry, the experiences we’ve shared—they’re uniquely ours, too.”

The sway of a tree branch beyond the window captures her attention for a fleeting moment before her gaze finds its way back to yours. There is a quiet strength in the way she straightens, the wistful smile on her lips.

“I have never met Ta Ming, and there is no reason to suspect I ever will. But piecing together what I know of this enigmatic Fire Nation soldier—” If there is a ripple in her tone at the words, it is fleeting, already gone— “of their relationship and what she meant to him, if by some twist of fate we ever find ourselves face to face… I would want to thank her. For loving him. For seeing qualities in him that often go unnoticed. How could I not honor their history, when it played a part in shaping the man I love?”

Rinna takes a moment to sip her tea, then places the cup in its saucer with a delicate clink, sitting back, graceful, resolved.

“But whatever they had is their story, and what we have is ours. A bond that transcends time and circumstance. And that’s all that really matters in the end.”

4/10. You've caught him off guard, but he's mostly just amused.

“In a universe where Ta Ming wouldn’t burn to the ground at the barest suggestion of that…?” 

His lips pull to the side as he strokes his stubbled jaw in exaggerated thoughtfulness. A brief moment, and his eyes skate back, lit with an answer. 

“Assuming everyone’s enthusiastic and down for the ride—” smirk sharpening, a discreet little wink— “or at least’s had enough alcohol to drown their inhibitions, and the offer was there?”

Lu Da lets the rest of it hang in the air, shrugging suggestively.

“Now, do I have the tingly sort of feelings for Ozai? I mean, no. But life is about exploring uncharted territories, pushing boundaries, and I've never been one to shy away from a little adventure. And besides, have you seen that couple?” The tattoos on his face crease with a rakish grin. “A little coaxing and I might be convinced.”

Does your soldier friend from the Fire Nation do anything that you ✨like✨ but can’t bring yourself to tell her (or anyone else)?

4/10. “I take it this is a like like question.” He does a cursory “coast clear” check, scratches at the back of his tattooed neck.

“There’ve been a couple times, mostly on nights I’ve crashed at her place, where we’ll be layin’ in her living room and she undoes her braid as we’re talking, shakes it loose. Auburn hair is just everywhere. Ta Ming’s usually so, shall we say, tightlaced and seeing her like that…”

Lu Da leans back with an almost-smile, teeth scraping softly against his bottom lip, and takes in a contemplative breath.

“Actually, there’s this, uh… I don’t think she has any idea, it’s so simple, y’know, but just damningly—” He taps a finger on the table, huffs a small laugh through his nose as he studies the grains. “It’s this certain way she smiles, only once in a while. Just a hint, a whisper, like some unshared secret, but her whole face softens with it, this tender thing on a woman who has reason to be anything but, and… I dunno. Every time, it catches me between the preservative impulse to look away and the one that wants to keep looking. By Agni’s mercy, something’s always gotten in the way of her noticing.”