[Fic] Avatar: Seventy Percent

[springgreen]

Spoilers: through 3x08
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Summary: Lessons Katara has learned.
Notes: A quick drabble! It's darker than I think the canon actually is.

Katara asks Sokka and Aang to get her medical texts. Water bending heals, as does she, and neither of them are surprised. Toph may suspect, but Toph keeps their uneasy peace and says nothing.

She learns muscle and sinew, saliva and bile, tears and vitreous humor. She traces the paths of veins through the human body, first on paper, then with brush and ink, and finally, with her mind. At first, she is too cruel for the wisp-thin capillaries, and she sports large purple bruises for days. As they fade to mottled green and yellow, she memorizes the workings of the heart. She touches the brain only when the bruises have stopped blooming on her body.

She can stop Sokka's nosebleeds with a wave of her hand, apply an unseen tourniquet to spurting arteries, even draw water from lungs. She can also wring every cell in the human body dry in less than a second.

Seventy percent of the human body is water, the old lady told her, and Katara will never forget.

Comments

[kintail.livejournal.com]

Ooo... well done.

[springgreen.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[nekonexus.livejournal.com]

Oh, definitely awesome. Yes.

[springgreen.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[rilina.livejournal.com]

Yay! Avatar fic!

I especially like how only Toph suspects.

[springgreen.livejournal.com]

I know, I loved the Toph-Katara episode so much! I thought I would hate it, because I usually hate two women fighting, but I loved how they rescued themselves.

I should probably write Toph fic some day...

[shati.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen much of Avatar yet, but I love this. If Katara is even close to this determined and this smart and this -- angry? -- in canon, I'll be thrilled. And I love how the violence is so creepy and so beautiful and not about physical strength.

[springgreen.livejournal.com]

I think the Katara in Avatar is this smart and this determined, but much less dark and much much less creepy ;).

But I couldn't resist! The show did blood bending!

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

She's definitely got the angry streak there too in canon, so it is very very easy for me to see all the elements that are there leading her to take this darker turn if she feels it is necessary.

(And this was wonderful, please tell me you have more A:TLA fic that just hasn't been tagged! Also, you should write Toph because there is just never enough good fic out there to live up to the sheer awesomeness of Toph, and you could definitely do her justice...)

[springgreen.livejournal.com]

Alas, I've only written this one! I write fic at the pace glaciers crawl. Though maybe actually watching the eps in real-time (I mainlined S1 and S2 in about four days) will make me write more, because there should be more Toph fic. I love Toph.

[sophiap.livejournal.com]

I love how the implications just sort of creep up on you until you get to the bit about wringing cells dry in just a second. The idea that she would start messing around with the brain gets creepier and creepier the more I think about it.

[springgreen.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I kept meaning to put something about causing strokes in the brain via blood clots or heart attacks, but I forgot. I am so freaked out by the idea of blood bending. The show only does blood bending as puppetry, but there are some really messed up things you can do to the human body -- blood bending assassination via heart attacks! It would look completely unsuspicious!

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Nice.

[springgreen.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Oh, very logical. Heh, heh. I approve!

[oyceter]

Thank you! I am now very taken with the idea of water bending assassins who kill via strokes!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

That's in Project Blue Rose! Only with telekinesis.

This is awesomely creepy, all the way down to the title. I love her practicing on herself.

[oyceter]

Thank you! Blood bending freaks me out so much. I also giggled when I reread PBR and discovered that Chely did the same via telekinesis; I had totally forgotten about it.