#aang.

[bopeepwritingsheep]

Characters I also love, sweet good bot Aang and writing him having to confront other worldviews, especially from places he didn’t expect is interesting.

ATLAxDOS - PoV Nukka

“Nukka! Talk some sense into her! Revenge isn’t going to accomplish anything! Why can’t you go with them and try to convince her that.”

Nukka glanced over at Aang, the unreadable expression on her face a familiar one that meant she was deep in thought. It was true that she’d argued against revenge but not for the reason that Aang had. She shook her head, not quite able to look Aang in the eye.

Sometimes it was hard to look Aang in the eye, his perceptions so different than her own--even if they were no less valid, how she had been raised made his pacifistic beliefs seem almost fanciful. That wasn’t fair to Aang though, there was nothing wrong with teaching forgiveness over revenge--In fact, it was the exact same kind of thought process that had once lead another bright young messianic boy to peace. But revenge was easier, hate was easier, and Shikako wasn’t as strong as Naruto.

Nukka wasn’t as strong as Aang.

So she looked him in the eye because not doing it would be a disservice to everything the boy stood for. Nukka might not be strong, but she wasn’t a coward, not in this.

“If I went I’d kill him myself.”

Aang’s look of shock made her wince, she’d let him down, and not just in refusing to ‘talk sense’ into Katara. Nukka sighed heavily, speaking about her mother--about Kya was hard. Katara and Sokka hadn’t been there, hadn’t been helpless to prevent such a stupid unneeded death. Hadn’t held a blood-soaked parka against Kya’s stomach to keep her alive long enough to tell Hakoda goodbye.

Nukka had lived the first ten years of her new life disoriented but slowly settling into the idea that life in the south pole while dull would be peaceful, at least until she grew older. It hadn’t occurred to her until after the fact that she’d forgotten Kya’s death. Denial had been her main tactic--Kya wasn’t her real mother so she shouldn’t be mourning her--but by that logic then Yoshino hadn’t been her real mother either and that thought was ridiculous.

So instead she focused on other things, on training, on avoiding Hakoda because she couldn’t look at him without being confronted by the fact that she hadn’t saved Kya--That if she had just remembered one thing Sokka and Katara’s mother would still be alive.

And that was what it came down to--The man, the raider, the bastard that had killed Kya, Nukka saw no reason that he should be allowed to breathe the same air, to stand under the same sun as wonderful, forgiving people like Aang. It wasn’t fair or right that monsters who killed women in front of their children got to live while an entire race of forgiving, peaceful people were murdered senselessly.

The world wasn’t fair but Aang was still trying to make it fair and Nukka couldn’t discourage him from trying, even if she didn’t agree. Because Nukka would take the easier route and let Aang take the road traveled by Uzumakis and avatars.

“Katara is a good person, Katara is a healer. She has a fighter’s resolve but killing in defense and killing out of malice are two different things, she’ll hesitate.” I wouldn’t, went unspoken but echoed loudly through the awkward silence.

[bopeepwritingsheep]

This is a short one, mostly just a little vigil about Nukka, having watched Aang get hit during the crossroads of destiny and being unable to stop it.

ATLAxDOS - PoV Nukka

Nukka knows he won't die. He can't die. Regardless she keeps a vigil at his bedside, even when Katara and Sokka and finally when those two have no luck Hakoda attempts to dissuade her from her watch. Still, she won't leave him. She alternates between sitting beside Aang, holding his hand and placing a cool cloth against his feverish forehead and pacing when she begins to feel jittery from sitting for so long. 

She's never out of sight for longer than fifteen minutes and even those times are when she's nearly bodily dragged out to take care of her own basic needs. Nukka refuses to answer when the others ask why she won't leave Aang's side when logically she would be a better help up on deck.

Shikako knows what it's like to die and wake up alone. She won't let it happen to someone she cares about.

[bopeepwritingsheep]

So, this is actually the FIRST bit of recursive fic I ever wrote for DOS and the first fics I ever posted on a public form period, they’re a few years old at this point (which is wild all unto itself) so if the writing style for the first few is a little wonky I apologize. I was still coming into my writing style at the time so while I may revise these a little for grammar I’m gonna leave them mostly unrevised for content. SO BEHOLD, my old DOSxATLA crossover works.

This first one is a little different than the others, because it was more writing prompt brainstorming than snippet so don’t expect the ones that follow it to have the same format. The subsequent works are much more scene based and very non-linear as I pretty much just wrote whatever scenes I felt would be interested with Shikako turned Nukka added to the mix.

ATLAxDOS Part 1 - Nukka 1

1. Shikako--Nukka now she occasionally has to remind herself--did not mean to resent Sokka quite so much. She hadn't ever considered herself a particularly petty person but this new life, a third life, she never asked for was proving her to be not quite spiteful but something close to it. Katara is easier, not the almost doppelganger that Sokka is and easier to accept as her family, even if she views the girl as more of a cousin than a sister.

2. Hakoda (not her father) thinks her distance is due to grief over Kya's (not her mother's) death, she knows this from eavesdropping on conversations between him and Bato. They believe that she grew cold and serious where Sokka turned towards the other end of the spectrum but they aren't quite right. Nukka would be lying if she said Kya's death hadn't affected her but the grief felt second hand and festers not because it feel like it belongs to her but because it feel like it doesn't. Kya wasn't her mother, she rationalizes shortly after the attack. Therefore Shikako has no right to grieve as deeply as Katara and Sokka do. With that settled she does exactly that, she doesn't griece. Nukka forces every pang of sadness deep down into someplace black and indistinct, where she can ignore the ache of losing a mother for the third time.

3. The resentment isn't quite mutual, Sokka while annoyed with both of his younger sisters loves both of them dearly. However, Nukka knows that every time she bests Sokka in whatever form of combat he's decided is needed to be a proper warrior that day, there is a flash of something in his eyes that she can't quite identify. The only subjects Sokka can best her in are fishing and his boomerang. Nukka can toss a knife )she would prefer a kunai) into a target from yards further than even some of the tribe's warriors but the boomerang she just can't quite figure out. (Shikako thinks that if she just had her old body back she could figure it out.)

4. Aang is something startling, a breath of fresh air as much as he is a punch to the gut. So much like Naruto but so not. For the first time, and perhaps it is because she had willed herself blind, she sees shades of Sakura and Ino within Katara as she exchanges banter with Aang and Sokka. Nukka feels ill.

5. It would have been easy to simply turn Aang over as soon as the fire nation troops set foot on the ice except her thought to be long gone, nearly maternal roots have sunk their way into the Airbender boy. Besides, the water tribe isn't home but it is the closest thing she has and one of the many knives she keeps on her person flies true from her hand and slices into the scarred boy's cheek just before he can retaliate against Sokka's reckless attack. "A warning shot. Step away from him now." She calls out, her tone slipping dangerously towards shinobi. For once she almost feels like her again.

6. Aang sacrifices his freedom anyway because of course, he does--How could she have forgotten, but it had been so many years and she remembered so little of The Last Airbender. Nukka puts in her quiet support for a rescue mission while Sokka stews a bit over being outvoted by his little sisters. They are safely tucked away on Aang's sky bison by the end of the night. Katara and Aang chat amiably at Appa's helm while Sokka leans against it. Occasionally he glances between his two sisters as if to make sure they haven't attempted to sneak off again, though Nukka is unsure of how they would manage while atop a flying multi pedaled mammal. Her eyes are fluttering shut to the sound of Sokka's quiet grumblings, a familiar white noise she is grudgingly fond of.

7. Shikako's eyes snap open when he mumbles troublesome under his breath.