Lines written by little Lu Ten

by TiredOlderSister

Summary:

Prince Lu Ten, second of his name, son of Princess Azula, nephew of Fire Lord Zuko, and surrogate baby brother to Princess Izumi, needs to write lines when he gets in trouble (which is, by his own making, very often).

Chapter 1

I will not put Izumi’s dolls in the oven and turn it on.

I will not put frogs in Izumi's bed.

I will not set Izumi's homework on fire.

I will not feed Izumi's homework to the turtle ducks.

I will not dare Izumi to shoot me with lightning.

I will not dare Izumi to punch me in the face.

I will not dare Izumi to throw knives at an apple on my head.

I will not team up with Izumi to overwhelm the adults.

I will not say ‘Screw you Uncle, you pushed your sister off an airship!’ whenever I'm stopped from fighting Izumi.

I will not dig up anyone's sibling issues just to get out of family dinner.

I will not sing songs about killing your brother on the battlefield with the intention of making people cry.

I will not make passive aggressive comments in order to send Uncle Zuko into a rage.

I will not firebend other people's tea cold.

I will not drive a carriage before I have a license.

I will not touch an electric fence in an attempt to redirect lightning.

I will not make a hand-holding chain with my friends and shock ourselves until we throw up.

I will not call Uncle Zuko a son of a bitch in front of Grandpa.

I will not call Uncle Zuko the better version of Ozai.

I will not sneak into the prison just to call Ozai the worse version of Zuko.

I will not call Grandpa Iroh ‘Azula-with-no-action’.

I will not call Mama ‘Iroh-with-no-social skills’.

I will not dress up in black pajamas and a theatre mask and climb out the windows and run along the roofs.

I will only fly with my fire jets when the air above is unoccupied. No crashing through orchards, no breaking roof tiles, no popping up at windows to scare people.

I will not brew any plant I find into tea just because it resembles something in Grandpa's tea supply. It may cause me to hallucinate.

I will not pretend to be a ghost haunting the palace.

I will not stow away on ships.

I will not tie a string to Tenzin and fly him like a kite.

I will not play catch with Tenzin and bounce him like a ball.

I will not tell Kya to waterbend and steal Grandpa’s tea.

I will not ask Kya to put me in an ice hamster ball and roll over all the plants in the garden.

I will not trick Lin and Suyin into helping me practice lying.

I will not ask Lin and Suyin to help me turn the ground into lava.

I will not fight Bumi over who's mom can beat up who's.

I will not provoke Bumi into throwing a boomerang at me.

I will watch my mouth around Bumi or else wear a helmet.

I will not ask Sokka to be my uncle instead ‘because he's cooler'.

‘Fire Nation oath time’ at school is not ‘Mock Uncle Zuko time’.

I will not make snarky comments during history class.

I will not jump on my desk and yell ‘I will conquer Ba Sing Se!’

I will not jump onto Aang's back and scream ‘Uncle! I have captured the Avatar! I have restored my honour!’ when diplomats are here.

When Guang Rong is here for Official Political Business, it is unprofessional to flirt with her daughter.

I will not climb into the rafters and eavesdrop while a meeting is taking place.

I will watch out for Izumi from a normal vantage point.

I will not burst into a political meeting, scream ‘The floor is lava!’, and set the carpets on fire.

If Izumi is bored, tired, or stressed, I will wait until the meeting is over to comfort her and cheer her up.

I will not wish for Izumi to replace Uncle Zuko as Fire Lord anytime soon.

I will call Uncle Zuko ‘His Royal Honour-obsessed Angstiness’

I will not call myself ‘Fire Lord Izumi's little brother' until it is factually accurate.

I will not make it factually accurate either.

Notes:

Guess how many of these things Lu Ten kept doing anyway.

I might turn some of these instances into full fics if I have time.

Edit: Added the line about Lu Ten making tea from a wild plant and drugging himself. It just came to me.

Chapter 2: I will not put Izumi’s dolls in the oven and turn it on.

So, y’all want to hear about what shenanigans I got into that Mama and Uncle Zuko made me write all those lines, huh? Sure, I love telling stories! But before I confess all my crimes against the Fire Lord, I have to let you know my big sister Zuzu’s going to be involved in most of this. You probably know her better as Crown Princess Izumi. She puts on this persona of being perfectly composed and mature beyond her years most of the time, but with me she can relax and be herself, with all the tomfoolery of siblings close in age. Izumi's gonna have to be Fire Lord someday, so don't judge her too harshly, she's under a lot of pressure. And for the record, I started most of this.

So, this happened when I was four. My Mama and Uncle Zuko had dropped us off at Grandpa Iroh’s tea shop so we could spend time with our grandpa, and they could get a break from the little monsters that are four-and-six-year-olds. Despite the latter reason, Grandpa Iroh was always happy to have us, he made us tea and let us eat as many desserts as we liked, and this time he had a special gift for Izumi: an Earth Kingdom doll.

Before you ask; no, there was no cool Earth Kingdom dagger for me. Partly because Grandpa had wised up to the realities of the everyday care of small children and the headaches you could cause yourself by giving them certain toys. Partly because when I was born, Mama told him that if he ever gave me weapons, armor, toy tanks, or anything remotely suggesting militarism before I reached adulthood, she’d do something unspeakably horrible to him. Something about the trauma of a child soldier and what happened with the previous Lu Ten.

Back to the subject. The new doll was adorable. She was dressed in the colourful silks of the wealthy and fashionable girls from Ba Sing Se with her hair in an elaborate up-do. She had a perfectly shaped porcelain face painted to look like skin with arched brows, bright eyes, fine eyelashes and a demure smile on her pink lips. Naturally, Izumi adored her. She spent the whole morning playing with her. Dressing and undressing her, positioning her moveable limbs to make her dance, or just holding her and admiring the fine embroidery on her dress and the delicate brush strokes used to paint her features.

But me? I had never been so jealous in my (short) life! It wasn’t even because my sister got a present and I didn’t, it was all the attention my sister was giving the doll. Why was Zuzu playing with her instead of me? I thought. I was much cuter than her! I was more fun than a dumb doll! 

Rivalry with an inanimate object. Ridiculous, I know! In my defense, I was four; losing my place as my sister’s special playmate was literally the worst thing that had ever happened to me! So while Zuzu was innocently appreciating Grandpa's gift, I was concocting a scheme to eliminate my rival.

When lunch time rolled around and Izumi finally had to put down her ‘new friend’ to eat, I asked Grandpa to tell us the Legend of the White Snake. Bai Su Zhen and her husband Xu Xian and the meddling monk Fa Hai.

When lunch was finished and Izumi picked up her doll again, I said: “Zuzu, why don't we play the Legend of the White Snake? Your doll can be Bai Su Zhen!” And Zuzu swallowed the hook.

So my sister and I acted out all the people and events of the folktale, with the new doll taking the main role of the White Snake. All the while Grandpa watched us with a fond smile. In hindsight, he probably should have suspected something. Siblings don't play so peacefully unless they're planning some mischief.

When we got to the part where Fa Hai traps Bai Su Zhen, I used an empty teapot for the monk's magic alms bowl. I stuffed the doll into the teapot, ran into the kitchen, threw her in the oven and slammed the door shut to represent Fa Hai imprisoning her under Thunder Peak Pagoda. 

Then I told Zuzu: “Now you be Xu Shi Lin, off to pass the imperial exams with the highest score in the nation and free his mother!”

Now at this point, Izumi might have realized what I was up to and just went along with it because she thought it was fun or clever or something along those lines. Or maybe she was just swallowing the line and sinker as well. In any case she skipped off to find her school tests with 100%'s, and while no one was looking, I sent a puff of flame into the oven’s coals.

So we went and played the part where Xu Shi Lin goes to the capital to take the imperial exams and obtains the highest score in all the empire, and then the part where the Emperor recognizes his achievements. I made sure to drag this on for as long as possible with dramatic speeches from the Emperor and Xu Shi Lin on filial piety and devotion to his family, in order to give the oven time to roast.

Our game went on until the smell of burning fabric drifted out of the kitchen, over the smell of tea and Grandpa Iroh noticed something was wrong. He quickly identified the source, rushed into the kitchen with the two of us following to watch the show, extinguished the fire, and threw open the door to reveal the oven full of charred silk and cracked porcelain, all that remained of my sister’s beautiful doll. 

Now I know better than to reveal my trickery to adults, but at the time I couldn't resist cackling with glee at my successful scheme.

Well Grandpa was rightfully upset that I screwed up his oven and he scolded me for it. But when he started on me for burning the doll, Izumi interjected:

“Don't yell at Lulu! It was only a doll to be played with, and we played Legend of the White Snake with it. Anyway, playing with little brothers is much more fun! Brothers are better than dolls.”

And what happened next shocked us all. Grandpa just…froze. Stopped scolding and just stared at us, wide-eyed and silent for a moment. Our grandfather, the great General Iroh, the mighty Dragon of the West, rendered speechless because my sister had taken my side. 

In that moment we saw that we had caught him off guard, he truly didn’t know what to say next. To a four year old and a six year old, seeing our grandfather like this was world-shaking. This might have been the first time we’d fully observed the effect of teaming up against the adults. And what an effect it had! I suppose it was like a little mouse scurrying in the grass and witnessing one of the great hawks in the sky being suddenly shot down. The realisation that the most powerful thing in your world wasn’t unshakeable either.

Of course, it was just for a moment. Grandpa Iroh recovered his surprise and went on explaining to us what a mess we’d made, and how much trouble it would be to clean out the oven, and that we wouldn’t be getting any baked treats in the meantime. But I didn’t care, my little mind was focused on the power I’d just discovered Izumi and I had together.

When Mama and Uncle Zuko showed up to get us, Grandpa made us recount the whole story to them and showed them the mess in the oven. 

Uncle Zuko was like: “Come on, he's four, he doesn't know what he's doing.” 

But I knew exactly what I was doing.

Mama and Uncle Zuko got into an argument over what to do with me. Apparently it was the first time I’d performed such complex chicanery. They weren’t sure how to punish me because while I had made a big mess and destroyed Izumi’s doll, Izumi was telling them that she had forgiven me and not to punish me. And also, I was four. What were they going to do, make me buy a new oven?

Soon enough, Mama’s sharp tongue poked at Uncle Zuko’s bad temper and the argument turned into a fight. They started yelling insults and spitting sparks at each other while Izumi and I laughed at our parents and Grandpa Iroh tried to calm us all down.

I ended up having to write ‘I will not put Izumi’s dolls in the oven and turn it on.’ ten times. Which is no small task for a four year old who could barely hold a brush. By the time I was finished I had ink stains on my hands, arms and face, only some of which were on purpose. But all the while as I was clumsily tracing out each character, I thought that it had been worth it. That day Zuzu and I discovered that if we worked together and schemed together, we could catch our adults off guard, surprise and overwhelm them. Any one of them didn’t know what to do when it was suddenly the two of us against them. Over the years we came to rely on each other constantly.

Chapter 3: I will not brew any plants I find into tea just because it resembles something in Grandpa's tea supply. It may cause me to hallucinate.

So this incident happened when I was fourteen. I set up a sibling camping trip for Zuzu and me, and then promptly ruined it the first day.

By the age of sixteen, Izumi had assumed the full duties of her role as heir to the throne. The adults had all decided that she could carry them out with full proficiency, without much question of whether she should. But powerful princess or not, my sister was still only a teen-aged girl, and I knew that someone needed to look out for her well-being or she'd have a mental breakdown from all that pressure.

So I convinced our parents to let us go on a sibling camping getaway, just the two of us. Uncle Zuko was reluctant of course, he needed Izumi for political functions. No worries, I hadn't spent so many hours around Mama and Grandpa Iroh without picking up on their persuasive skills.

So we set off into the woods with a tent, cookware and utensils, toothbrushes and toothpowder, and my teapot of course; all packed onto an ostrich-horse. Izumi’s perpetually focused frown was fading away: her furrowed brow smoothing, firm mouth relaxing, and fixed, narrowed eyes widening to take in the great outdoors around us. Seeing as my plan was already beginning to work, I was feeling pretty good about myself and looking forward to the days ahead.

We decided the first order of business was acquiring food. Following the descriptions and images in our guidebook on foraging, we set about determining which plants would taste delicious when pan-fried for dinner, and which would cut off our oxygen supply and extinguish our inner flame.

While we were verifying if the clusters of straight green stems were the wild onions we thought they were, I got distracted by a plant on the other side of the clearing. I swear its distinctively shaped leaves looked familiar, so I rushed over to get a better look.

“Hey Zuzu, take a look! I think I saw these leaves in Grandpa’s tea supply!” I called.

Izumi came after me and bent down to peer suspiciously at the plant I was crouched in front of.

“Are you sure about that? You know how the drying, roasting and aging process for producing tea makes the leaves look very different from their fresh appearances.”

“No, I'm sure. Grandpa showed me the dried and fresh versions of these. He told me they grow wild, and that if I found some I could brew it into tea fresh off the bush!”

“Oh no, I know how this goes. You're going to mistake a poisonous plant for tea.”

“Won't know until we try!”

I reached for the leaves, but my sister was quicker and caught my wrist in mid-air.

“Don't you dare, Lu Ten,” and she dragged me away from the intriguing plants.

While we were picking the wild onions, Izumi asked me: “You want some roast duck for dinner? I saw a flock of them by the river. One of them would taste great with these spring onions.”

“You mean… we’re going to kill one ourselves?”

“Of course, now do you want the bow or the spear?”

“Uhhh, Zuzu, you think you could do it without me? Please?”

“And why do you want to be left out?”

“It’s just that I don't think I could kill one of them. They look like the turtle ducks we have at home, and they're so cute!”

“You do realise your favorite food is just the plucked, cooked and seasoned bodies of those cute creatures, right?”

“Knowing that is one thing! Doing it myself is a completely different matter!”

“But you'd happily eat it if I killed it.”

“Yeah. Sorry Zuzu. Please?”

Izumi regarded me with her sharp eyes for a moment, considering. “Oh well. No shame in being soft-hearted. You stay here and chop up the onions and I'll go shoot us a duck.” 

Izumi marched off to the river with the bow and a quiver full of arrows. I pulled out the cutting board and chopped up all the spring onions. But as soon as I was done I started looking around for something interesting to do, and my eyes shot back to that possibly-tea-plant.

Now, I knew this was stupid. I knew this was dangerous. I knew Grandpa Iroh wasn't always right. But with my sister gone so was half my impulse control, and I let my curiosity overpower my caution.

Before Izumi could get back from hunting, I quickly picked some leaves off, dumped them in my teapot, filled it with water, and heated it with my firebending.

The smell should have been my first warning. Whatever brew I'd made didn't have the fragrance of proper tea. It didn't have any of the scents of tea. It was strong, smoky and earthy, and it just smelled really bad to me. I guess I'd describe it as a scent more likely to be found in a tavern than a tea shop.

But as you can probably guess, I didn’t heed my nose’s warning for a minute and drank all the ‘tea’ before anyone, including my own senses, could stop me.

It tasted about as good as it smelled.

Thinking of Zuzu's warning about poison, I sat still and observed my own body's reaction for a minute. But I didn't feel anything - no rashes breaking out, no stomach ache, no nausea, no shortness of breath. Just to make sure, I even looked through the section on poisonous plants in our foraging guidebook. I didn't find any description matching those leaves, though I also didn't find anything about them in the edible plants section. So I figured I'd just mistaken an ordinary plant for tea and I had nothing to worry about.

Boy was I wrong.

Soon enough, Izumi returned, holding a fat duck with an arrow shot though its neck and cheerfully declaring:

“Look what I got for us to eat! Man, I could get used to living like this…”

From the smell that hung over the whole clearing, it was immediately obvious what I'd done.

“You didn't .”

“I did,” I replied, smiling shamelessly.

“I should have known better than to leave you alone,” Zuzu moaned. “So was it tea after all?”

“No,” I said with disappointment. “It was nothing more than hot leaf juice.”

“You're lucky it wasn't poison. Now come here and help me pluck this duck.”

We got to work and I felt completely fine at the time. I thought any effect those leaves might have on me would be immediate. But while we were plucking the duck, I started laughing at everything. I’d pull out a handful of feathers, and laugh. Flip the duck over, and laugh. Underdown would fly into my face, and I’d laugh. Zuzu gave me a confused, mildly concerned look that asked what on earth was so funny about plucking poultry, and of course I found that hilarious as well. In hindsight, I can’t tell you what exactly was so funny, only that I was in a state to respond to everything by laughing.

When we had a naked fowl, Izumi started butchering and I started feeling a little woozy. I was still mostly in my sane mind at that point, so I wondered if it was caused by the sight of the dead duck getting its head and feet chopped off. But that wasn’t right, it was the act of killing that made me nauseous, not the blood and carcass afterwards. Regardless, I just kept getting dizzier, like the ground was shifting under me, the grass rocking in waves.

Izumi finished prepping the bird and called for me to help clean up, but I made no move to do so. Not because I wanted to get out of a chore, but because the whole world had suddenly started spinning around me. The grass, the trees, the ostrich-horse, and my sister, all going around and around in circles. And in slow motion.

My sister walked up to me in slow motion, peered closely at my dazed expression, and asked: “Hey, are you feeling alright?”

And instead of answering properly, my dizzy, confused brain supplied: “Zuzu, did we go boating instead of camping? The tides are out to get me.”

Izumi’s jaw dropped. Then she bared her teeth in a grimace and her hand flew up to rub at her temples.

“Yup. Knew it. This is what you get for following Iroh’s advice.” said my sister, half to herself because I wasn’t entirely conscious by that time. “We’re going to the healer.”

So Izumi packed up our camping supplies and bundled it all back onto our poor patient ostrich-horse, chopped onions and dead duck and all. Then she bundled me onto him. Usually I’m sure and steady riding any animal, but now my senses were so disoriented that my sister had to practically scoop me up and sit me in the saddle like a rag doll.

Zuzu took the reins and started leading us out of the woods and onto the road to the nearest healer. I flopped back against our packed-up supplies and looked up at the bright blue sky. The fluffy white clouds seemed to be flying through the air at super-speed, while down on land the ostrich-horse seemed to be walking in slow motion; every step he took amplified and reverberating through me, rocking like a boat on stubborn tides.

“Hey Zuzu, can our ship go faster? The cloud riders are escaping.” I mumbled. I don’t even know what was going through my head.

“Dear Guanyin, you’re not poisoned, you’re drugged ,” my sister groaned, half in exasperation and half in relief.

I don’t remember much more of the ride. If Izumi scolded me or called me crazy, I must not have noticed. All I remember is clinging to my sister because I was scared I was going to fall off the ostrich-horse… All of four feet to the ground.

The next thing I knew, Izumi had led us to the healer’s house and was knocking on the door. A middle aged woman in everyday clothes answered the door. She explained that it was her day off, she’d been planning to spend time with her family and she really wasn’t expecting any patients. But she agreed to take a look at me after Zuzu explained the situation and asked very nicely.

The healer introduced herself as Doctor Ge and told Zuzu to tie our ostrich-horse in their stable while she led me, stumbling and staggering, stuttering nonsense, into her examination room and put me on the bed. When Izumi came in she asked her:

“So what has he ingested today?”

My sister showed her the remaining contents of my teapot. “He picked the leaves off a wild plant in the nearby woods and brewed it into tea! I tried to stop him but he insisted our grandfather told him it was okay!”

Instead of getting worried, Doctor Ge just looked curious and remarked: “Huh, that’s not how teenagers usually take it.”

Izumi’s palm slammed into her forehead.

Doctor Ge mixed up a pot of herbs and powders, boiled it all in water, and made me drink bowl after bowl of the medicinal brew. She explained that it would help flush out the substances and sober me up faster. She then told Zuzu that they should continue monitoring me just in case, but most likely, I would be good to go in a few hours. She went on explaining that the effects were short-lasting and reassured Izumi that I just needed to sleep it off and I'd be back to normal by the end of the day. I guess they went on to discuss why we two teenagers were out in the woods alone and arranging to write to an adult to pick us up. I didn't hear, I was following the doctor's orders and drifting off to sleep.

All the while the two of them were talking like reasonable people, I was off in a bizarre, nonsensical dream: My sister was the Fire Lord, sitting on the throne surrounded by flames, while I was a dragon, twinning my long scaly body around it all. I knew with absolute in-dream certainty that I was there to protect her and give advice, except none of my advice made any sense at all so she just ignored it.

A few hours and a few weird dreams later, Zuzu shook me awake to tell me that a hot air balloon had arrived to lift us back home. By then I had mostly regained my awareness, but apparently not my self control, because upon hearing that our camping trip was over I just started wailing like a baby. If I’d been in my right mind, I would have joked and laughed off the disappointment, and started planning for our next outing. But in my current state, I just felt so bad for ruining the trip I’d planned to let Izumi take a break from the crushing weight of her responsibilities. So all the way home I was crying and sobbing, and things were still moving in slow motion!

Before we left, Zuzu took the time to give a polite bow to Doctor Ge and all the other adults with her, and to shake hands with all her children and pat them on the head. She apologised for the sudden intrusion on her day off, and thanked her very nicely for taking care of me. I later found out that while I’d been off in La-la-land, Zuzu roasted up the duck she’d caught, served it with the spring onion, and shared it with the doctor and her family to make up for interrupting their family time with a teenage boy high as a kite. She packed up all our stuff onto the hot air balloon but left the ostrich-horse behind as payment. As she said: “We’re royalty, we should be generous and giving to others. I’m sure Doctor Ge and the other healers will be able to save many more lives and limbs with an ostrich-horse for transport.” Apparently, Zuzu and the healers had had an in-depth conversation about their work over dinner.

As soon as we landed, my sister marched me into the palace and ordered me to retrieve paper, brush, inkstick and inkstone and write ‘I will not brew any plants I find into tea just because it resembles something in Grandpa's tea supply. It may cause me to hallucinate.’ fifty times.

“Fifty times?! Nooo, I don’t want tooo! ” I whined. 

My sister gave me a look that had me saying: “Yes Fire Lord Izumi,” and running off obediently to do what she said.

Zuzu watched as I gathered the writing supplies and set them up on my desk. Once she confirmed I was writing, she marched off to find the adults and tell them the whole ridiculous story.

A few lines later, Mama came in, already grinning with amusement. 

“Welcome home dear, are you feeling alright?” She felt my forehead, cupped my cheeks and took a good look at my pupils.

“Oh yeah, I’m good now.” I said, rather sheepishly.

“Good,” Mama looked at what I was writing and her grin widened and became a laugh.

“Did Iroh really show that to you? Izumi’s letting him have it out there.” 

Sure enough, when we paused to listen, we could very clearly hear my sister's voice: yelling at our Grandpa, going on about how thoughtless he had been and what a terrible example he was setting for impressionable teenage boys. I could just picture it: Izumi marching up to Grandpa Iroh and seizing the front of his robes, taking full advantage of her recent growth spurt to lean over him, all intimidating.

“I swear, sometimes Zuzu thinks she's Iroh's mom instead of his granddaughter.” I remarked.

So that's how my love for tea ruined our camping trip and earned my Grandpa a tongue-lashing. Uh, the end?