Accidental Avatar 3.5: The Burn Book

Frog Tales

"Hello!"

"Achoo!"

"Gesundheit."

"Mangetsu, you threw me off," Zuko sighed.

"I'm not apologising for sneezing," the boy responded with a massive eye roll.

"Try again; I promise he won't sneeze again," Amaya grinned.

"Hang on," Mangetsu held up a hand, then burped loudly. "Kay, I'm good."

"You are utterly disgusting; you know that, right?" Amaya gave him a bemused smile.

"Heckin, yes," he responded lazily.

Zuko shook his head at them both, then took a deep breath before smiling brightly. 

"Hello! Zuko here, but I guess..." he rubbed the back of his head nervously, "you probably already know me... sort of... Uh... so, the thing is," he looked off to the side hesitantly, "I have a lot of firebending experience, and I'm considered pretty good at it," he looked ahead, smiling, "Well, you've seen me... you know when I was attacking you?"

His eyes immediately widened as he realised he made a verbal mistake. "Uh, yeah... I guess I should apologise for that... But anyway, I'm good now! I mean, I thought I was good before, but now I realise I was bad... ugh, but anyway... I think it's time I joined your group and taught the Avatar firebending."

There were several seconds of silence as Mangetsu and Amaya stared blankly at him.

"Well, what's your answer?!" Zuko demanded, clearly getting frustrated.

A random ribbit broke the silence, and Amaya burst out laughing.

Mangetsu sneezed again.

"Dammit, what the heck," he grumbled, rubbing his nose. "Ok, look, sincerity is good and all, but you were babbling. I had no idea what you were going on about half the time."

"Try not to force your smile, and relax a little," Amaya eventually added, once she stopped giggling. "It comes across as really forced when you're so tense."

"That too," Mangetsu nodded.

"Smile, don't smile too much, be sincere, talk less," Zuko grumbled as he ran a hand through his hair. "What do you even want from me?"

"Ah, the dilemma of womanhood," Amaya sighed wistfully. "Try body language; I hear it's very important."

Zuko grumbled. "How exactly am I supposed to convince these people I'm on their side when you both give such weird advice? What would Uncle do?"

He paused, pretending to hold an imaginary beard on his chin and started to pace while imitating Iroh's voice.

"Zuko, you have to look within yourself to save yourself from your other self," he moved his hand as if lecturing. "Only then will your true self reveal itself."

Zuko sighed heavily. "Even when I'm talking for him, I can't figure out what he means."

"Honestly, I thought it was excellent advice, just not super relevant to your current problem," Mangetsu shrugged.

"You speak Iroh, who knew," Amaya gave Mangetsu a mildly impressed look.

"Well, what would Azula do?" Zuko wondered.

"I don't-"

"Shhh! I gotta see this," Amaya shushed Mangetsu.

"Listen, Avatar, I can join your group," Zuko shifted his body, so his hip jutted out, his voice pitching up slightly as he tried to sound feminine. "Or I can do something unspeakably horrible to you and your friends. Your choice."

Zuko sighed. "I guess I'm not that good at impersonations."

"I thought that was spot on," Amaya chuckled.

"Even so," Mangetsu shrugged. "She's obviously the last person to look for advice from to get the gang on your side."

"Hey, Amaya, what would you do?" Zuko turned to her.

"Try imitating me; maybe it'll help."

"Just stop being an ass," Mangetsu threw a twig through the ghost girl.

"Oh, fine," Amaya pouted, then crossed her legs and made her voice sound wiser. "The time is always right to do what is right... so..."

She suddenly jumped up and swung her hands down as if flexing aggressively.

"DO IT!" Another flex. "JUST DO IT! Don't let your dreams be dreams... yesterday, you said tomorrow, so JUST DO IT! MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE! Just... DO IT!"

After a moment of stunned silence, Mangetsu spoke up.

"Well, that was oddly inspirational."

Another random frog noise set all three giggling.