rediscovering: (Default)
Prince Zuko 🔥 祖寇 ([personal profile] rediscovering) wrote2018-08-22 11:02 pm

moonblessings

Zuko is Sanguis. To reflect his dual nature, I'm granting him two moonblessed animals he'll gain attributes from. Which animal features appear will depend on his emotional state at the time of Sanguis moon. He will alternate between a sunbeam snake and a sun bear cub to varying degrees.

Sunbeam snake
Zuko will gain the black, iridescent scales of the sunbeam snake, and a snakelike look on his scarred eye. The scar itself will be fully covered in the same black, iridescent scales, which may also run around his facial contour areas, down the outer edges of his arms and shoulders, and y'know, just anywhere else where it'd look cool to have some black rainbow scales, okay.

Zuko will get these snakelike attributes when he is struggling with some darker emotions and thoughts at the time. Perhaps he's veering off path a little — fell in with a bad crowd, took to stealing again, has been chronically mean to people lately, etc — or if he's dealing with more anger than usual and having excessively violent outbursts. He only gains some attributes because this sort of mindset requires him to be active — anger requires full range of motion and capability. Can't fuck shit up if you're fucked up. These scales may be beautiful, but like many colorful things in nature, they should be considered a tangible mental warning to Zuko:

"Kid. Get your head back on straight and calm the fuck down."


Sun bear cub
Zuko will turn into a baby sun bear cub. That's it. Just a bear now. He can't talk or do anything a normal sun bear cub can't do. Just a normal baby bear with Zuko's mind screaming inside. Each time, Zuko will wake up from unsettling dreams to discover he's been transformed in his bed into a baby bear, a la Kafka, and likewise, once the moon phase is over, will resume his human form while sleeping. The mental state that would bring on this full metamorphosis into a bear is more complex than that of the snake.

Zuko will transform into a bear when he's feeling vulnerable — whatever this means at the time. He may be feeling especially lost, sad, confused, overwhelmed... like he's just not got a handle on life, or he just needs a break from it. While it may be terrifying and shameful for Zuko at first to deal with his bear transformations (which may not always happen if he's feeling pretty solid!), they could prove to be a strange sabbatical for him to disconnect and process his thoughts. It will be a fair comfort to be able to pause life and hide when feeling vulnerable, a chance he's seldom had in life — even if only because he denied it to himself. I chose a baby sun bear cub for this moonblessing because his long-lost mother, who was his sole support and only confidant in life until age 11, was named Ursa. The essence of his innate vulnerability and the essence of his most visceral comfort take the same form.

The universe is forcing him to rest and breathe as a bear; Zuko has the chance to pause himself and hide in silence.

CODE BY TESSISAMESS