Decided to take some inspo from the superb Hakursa snippet by @imjustheretoseetheprivateblogs and develop it into a short fic. Below the cut, enjoy Ursa giving Hakoda another reason to appreciate Fire Nation culture on Ember Island. 😎
Hakoda comes to an abrupt stop beside her, and, as her arm is looped through his, brings her to a halt as well. Shifting away from the bustling foot traffic of Ember Island’s most popular market, Ursa glances up to her husband — usually so confident and collected, but at the moment with his handsome features scrunched in total bewilderment, brows pinched and eyes wide and mouth agape — then follows his gaze down the line of stalls.
“The yellow fruit? That’s a papaya, dear.”
“Um, no. Not the papaya. The other thing.”
“I’m familiar with fireworks. Behind the fireworks.”
She cranes her neck for a clearer angle, but there are too many shoppers coming and going; taller than her by half a head, Hakoda must be able to see something she can’t.
She steps forward, but he hesitates for a second — perhaps the natural caution of a hunter wary to approach something strange and unfamiliar — prompting her to lead the way, weaving through the crowd like a winding ferretsnake.
“There.” He nods to the stall directly ahead.
At first, Ursa still isn’t sure what has him so perplexed. The vendor, a woman in her fifties with a long greying braid rearranging towels on the shelves in the back, seems innocuous enough; there’s nothing particularly odd on display, either — just the standard assortment of beachwear and parasols and sleeveless tunics with cheesy slogans like ‘Ember Island: Hotter than the Boiling Rock!’ across the chest.
She tosses another glance his way, again following Hakoda’s narrowed eyes as they scrutinize the headless, limbless wooden mannequin behind the counter.
And all at once, everything falls into place:
The most prominent items on display are women’s bathing suits. There’s nothing unfamiliar about that to her, but to a man who spent his life surrounded by ice and snow, anything so scant must be baffling in the extreme. And even by the standards of Ember Island, the swimsuit on the mannequin is risqué.
“That, dear,” she says, a coy grin tugging at her lips, “is a bikini.”
“A…bikini?” His eyes flick over to her, then to the underdressed mannequin, then back to her again. “Do I want to know what that is?”
“Oh, I think you do. It has quite the origin story.” She leans into him, curling her arm around his to clutch the thick muscle of his bicep. Thus far, she’s managed to get her hunky chieftain into a crimson open-front tunic and dark red trousers — supremely flattering, if she does say so herself — but circumstances call for additional cultural enrichment. “You see, over two hundred years ago, the eccentric Firelord Hokakyo wished to test the potential of the Great Comet. He summoned the greatest benders in the Fire Nation and brought them to the waters around the Bikini Atoll, just a few leagues north of here. The locals of Ember Island watched from the beach as the firebenders attacked all at once, each man launching great plumes of flame from his ship, swelling into a spectacular firestorm — and when the smoke cleared, the atoll had been wiped from the map!”
The thought occurs to Ursa that the enthusiasm of her retelling may have been in slightly poor taste given how the next appearance of the Great Comet was used for a less academic end by Firelord Sozin. She still isn’t sure which parts of their history are acceptable to celebrate these days; after all, one could banish a Fire Nation noblewoman from the Fire Nation, but one couldn’t banish the Fire Nation from a Fire Nation noblewoman.
“Can’t say that’s the first tale of the Fire Nation’s wanton pyromania I’ve ever heard, but it’s definitely the most explosive.” He arches a brow at her, his smile tight but fond. “So what exactly does an overcooked atoll have to do with that thing?”
“Well, in more recent history — when Ember Island became a popular vacation spot a few decades ago — that specific style of women’s beachwear was marketed as ‘hot and explosive as the Bikini Atoll.’”
“And it still is!” The vendor races over to meet them, wearing the broad, exaggerated smile of a veteran actress or experienced saleswomen. As Ursa is the former, she recognizes the latter. “Sorry to keep you lovely people waiting. Anything that catches your eye?” She tilts her head towards the mannequin. “The Sealord’s Bane, perhaps?”
“The…what?” Hakoda, descended from the legendary Sealords himself, balks at that. “I thought that thing was called a bikini…”
“Indeed it is, and I styled it off a very famous one! Some millennia ago, when the Sealords of the South Pole preyed on the Fire Nation coast, a local lord devised a plan to undo them. He enlisted the fairest maiden on his island and…”
Ursa fights the urge to roll her eyes as the vendor prattles on, spinning some ridiculous yarn (which, unlike the destruction of the Bikini Atoll, has no basis in reality whatsoever) to encourage them to buy a hilariously overpriced and scandalously immodest piece of swimwear. True, the design is elaborate, almost regal, featuring a gilded clasp between scarlet cups and thin golden chains synching the top around the back and neck, another set linking the bottoms, cut high to emphasize the hips — but certainly not something Ursa herself would dare to wear on a public beach.
Her attention slides over to Hakoda, trying to diplomatically disengage from the vendor’s endless series of spiels — the most recent of which concerns a pair of red board shorts, probably a size too small for Hakoda and thus making for a spectacularly snug fit. Ursa would fight a dozen rabid platypus bears to see him squeezed into those.
“Thank you very much — we’ll have to think about it,” he says, dropping his Chief Voice to bring a firm end to the hawking.
“Of course.” The vendor smiles, unfalteringly pleasant. “Come back anytime!”
As the two of them turn away, Ursa glimpses him taking one last quick look at the bikini, his pupils wide and throat bobbing. She knows her husband, imaginative man that he is, well enough to see through his eyes: the mannequin’s rough, yellowed wood fading away and her own likeness materializing in its place.
Like Firelord Hokakyo, she suddenly recognizes the untapped potential of a powerful device she might harness for her own purposes. True, she’d never wear such a number in front of anyone except for Hakoda, never outside the beach house, but that’s precisely how it would serve her best anyway.
“Oh! I think they’re selling seal jerky over there!” She points down the street towards nowhere in particular.
Hakoda twists around, head perked and eyes scanning, following the direction of her finger like an aardvark-hound on the scent. “Really?! Seal jerky on Ember Island?”
“Get me some, would you, dear? Since the kids are seeing that awful play tonight, I’m going to pick up a few things for our dinner.” She’s not referring to food.
“I’ll get plenty. Meet you back here in a bit.” He tears off into the crowd without another word, on the hunt for a quarry he’ll never find.
Ursa almost feels bad. Her husband loves his seal jerky — though he should’ve been tipped off when she asked for some herself — and dangling it in front of his face would seem cruel if she weren’t planning to give him something far better.
Wheeling around, she hurries straight back to the stall, steps in front of another customer, and points to the mannequin.
The vendor smirks, reaching for a gift bag.
“Oh yes. Definitely throw in the board shorts.”
