yonsos

like, he’s entitled to sick leave, he really ought to take a couple months to break the curse and come to terms with whatever the fuck just happened to him, but instead of embarking on a journey of self-discovery and healing he just keeps showing up to work. no one can get captain maximus to go on his fucking voyage of self actualization and fix the curse because he’s obsessed with catching flinn ryder. everyone really fucking hopes that when he finally catches this guy the curse might be broken anyway, but it isn’t.

he just keeps showing up to work. he glares at the stablehands until they saddle him up. everyone’s gone over the regulations a dozen times but there’s nothing there saying you’re not allowed to saddle and ride the captain of the guard if he makes you do it. his former second in command rides him around like ‘sir i really don’t know about this’ and he’s just like ‘are we going to catch some criminals or what.’

you can see in the movie that everyone in the royal guard defers to this horse. it’s absolutely because that’s their boss. and secondarily because now he’s two thousand pounds of percheron.

Azulon looked down. His grandson, along with the turtleduck in his arms, looked up.

“This is Agni,” the boy said. “He says you should stop now.”

QUACK, said the duck. It was a strange red-gold. It was glowing. It was staring at him, even through the flames of the throne.

“Stop what?” humored the Fire Lord.

“The war,” the boy said. “It’s killing too many firebenders. Also his sister has been yelling at him, so we should let the waterbenders go, too, and be nice to them from now on so he can get a good night’s sleep and not have her redirecting comets at him any more. Probably we should leave all the other benders alone too because he’s pretty sure it was the air spirits that made him a flightless duck. He says that’s their sense of humor.”

QUACK, said the turtleduck.

“…Guards,” said Azulon.

This proved to be an ill-advised action.

ALTERNATE TAKE THAT WENT NOWHERE AND ISN'T EDITED HAVE FUN WITH THAT:

Unofficial 6th language of love: Food

Sharing food, making food, trying food, and finding gems like History Maker Bakery in Italy 🥖🥐

1. borrowing misery from future

2. carrying grief of the past