#dragon-shifters v wool blanket: FIGHT

[muffinlance]

I'm dying for more Tiny Danger Noodle Zuko content. I can't decide which I wanna see more; someone accidentally hurting the noodle (resulting in dramatic Miette-esque "betrayed" looks on Zuko's part and lots of pampering and cuddles to beg forgiveness from the crew) or them hurting Zuko on purpose when they first meet him and immediately regretting it from the heartbreaking noises he makes and how scared of them he becomes 🤔

(Continued from this ficlet.)

Bato swore, which ended Hakoda’s good day.

“Fire Nation?” he asked.

“Who else,” his second-in-command said, lowering the spyglass.

“Ship?”

“Scout.”

“Shoot it down.”

* * *

Zuko landed on the mast. And sort of… wobbled, but his claws were sharp and the mast was wood, so. He clung on. And blinked hazily down. The dogs had brought him here, so… this was safe, right? He… he needed help. There was only so much that good-intentioned tongue licks could do for a burn wound. 

The sails were blue.

The men had bows.

Zuko’s day got worse.

* * *

It was hard to see how big the scout was, between the sails. So Hakoda was not expecting how very small it was, when it hit the deck. 

The hatchling dragged itself into something of a defensible position. It braced its legs and arched its neck and flared its wings, like a kitten-otter trying to scare off a predator. It bleed on his deck, much less intimidatingly.

“Hold your fire,” he ordered.

Which was just as well, given that the ocean took that moment to erupt all around them.

“Woof,” boomed a very disappointed isodog.

* * *

Healer Kustaa could feel the ground under his feet rumbling with growls as he stepped down onto the dog’s back.

“Easy, boy,” he said, and very carefully picked his way over the ridges of the isodog’s shell, towards where another dog’s big head was trying to lick something that was smaller than its tongue. Said thing was hissing. 

The hissing increased exponentially as he drew closer. The little dragon’s size, on the other hand, seemed to shrink as it coiled more tightly around itself. There was a wash of red mixing with the water on the first dog’s shell, like watercolors diluted. The puddle had been much starker up on deck.

“Easy, boy,” Kustaa repeated, and set his bag down, hopefully out of immediate range of incineration. Unlike himself. “I’m a healer.”

The hissing continued.

“Can I take a look?” 

The hissing did not abate.

“I know you’re scared—”

The hissing intensified.

“—And I’m sorry my chief is an idiot—”

A slight decrease.

“—But we’ve got to get that out and get it wrapped. And unlike your big friends here, I’ve got opposable thumbs.”

A scaly snout poked tentatively from the dragon’s coils, a little red tongue flickering in the air, like it could taste his sincerity.

A scaly snout with a pustulant burn wound. 

“...We’ll take care of that, too.”

The head retreated back into the coils. The hissing resumed.

Kustaa sighed, and pulled out the most secret of healer techniques: a bulky wool blanket.

He carried the wrapped-up dragon back to the sickbay, hissing and wiggling.

#there is nothing more heart-breaking than a dog's disappointment in you #other than several tons of dogs disappointed in you #Kustaa has absolutely used that blanket on Bato #dragon-shifters v wool blanket: FIGHT #it's like an oven mitt for your danger noodle #Baby Dragon Zuko: *burns with indignity* #*and also fever* #*and a little bit of actual fire* #Kustaa breaks out the other secret healer technique: a bucket of water #Avatar The Last Airbender #atla #Zuko #dragon Zuko #Little Scaled Zuko #ficlet