Chapter Text
On an island, at the very top of the oldest volcano, one-hundred years past the time of Sozin, a young man stood before his countrymen.
The morning was overcast, cloudy, but as the young prince stepped out onto the dais, in front of his people, his family, his friends, the clouds broke and the sun shone bright and golden.
And the Prince bowed his head, deaf to the cheers.
And the Prince did not hold himself in the same regard his predecessors did.
And the Prince knelt on the stone, silent.
And the Prince, still swathed in the golden light he had been granted at birth, received the Flame on his head.
“Hail, Fire Lord Zuko of the Fire Nation!”
And the Fire Lord rose.
“Interesting choice, brother.” Azula crosses her arms. Zuko looks at her in his mirror as he layers his blue tunic with his formal outer robes.
“They’re my clothes.” Zuko says simply. The tailor who is adjusting his collar raises her eyebrows, but says nothing.
“They’re not exactly befitting of the Fire Lord. Are you asking the court to not take you seriously?” Azula drawls. She’s doing well today, judging by the lack of scorch marks on her simple robes, the fact that her hair is out of her face and brushed, and that she’s willingly sitting on his couch and watching him get dressed for his coronation banquet.
“Well, I am the Fire Lord, so everything I do is befitting of the Fire Lord, isn’t it?” Zuko finishes the last braid on the side of his head and begins to pull his hair up into a top knot.
Azula is surprised at this, if her expression is anything to go by. She quickly schools her face back into uninterested boredom, picking at the stitching on her robes.
“Interesting, Zu-zu,” she says. “You would have blown up at me if I said that to you when we were children.”
“I’ve changed.” Zuko wraps the ribbon around his somewhat-lopsided top-knot. Even after a month of practice, he still struggles. “And so have you.”
“Have I?” Azula raises her eyebrows. “How can you be so sure? Perhaps I’ll snap-” she brings her fingers together with a sharp sound and allows a blue flame to appear on the tips. “Kill you tonight, and usurp the throne.”
Zuko snorts a half-laugh and waves his hand to extinguish her flame before she sets fire to the couch. “Do your worst, Azula.”
The banquet is massive and the crowd stifling. Sokka sticks close to his side, eying the nobles and generals that are mingling throughout the hall, trying their best to get five seconds with the new Fire Lord, with varying levels of suspicions. Zuko rolls his eyes at his brother but doesn’t protest.
Some of the generals have less than loyal expressions on their faces when they pledge their undying loyalty to him.
Iroh keeps an eye on them from a few feet away, clearly trying to give Zuko space, but unwilling to go too far. They spy him talking to Hakoda, waving his hands energetically, and Zuko pales, wondering what embarrassing childhood stories Iroh is regaling his father with.
The banquet dies down sometime after midnight, after Sokka has finally wandered off with Suki and Toph to find a moment of solitude. Zuko manages to slip out a side-door with a grateful look at Kaito, who only inclines his head slightly in response. He walks the darkened halls, loosening the high collar of his robes.
A side-door is ajar, familiar voices echoing from within. Zuko pauses, hand on the door.
He knows this room.
He knows what happened in this room.
His scar flares hot, but Zuko shuts his eyes, takes a deep breath, and opens the door.
Katara and Aang are sitting cross-legged on the floor of the Agni Kai chambers, passing around a small ball of water Katara seems to have pulled from the air.
“Zuko!” Aang’s face brightens as he spots him. “I thought you’d still be at the party. What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?” Zuko tries to stop his voice from shaking, and it works. Mostly.
Katara’s expression immediately changes. She stands up and waves her hand to disperse the water into mist. “Is something wrong? We were just looking for someplace quiet to talk-”
“This is, uh.” Zuko rolls his eyes up at the ceiling, if only to not have to see his sister’s face when he tells her. The mural of Agni is still tiled there, all bright reds and golds. Strange. It looks nothing like her. “This is the Agni Kai arena.”
The room is silent for a moment. Zuko stares into the bright-yellow of Agni’s eyes. There’s a hand on his shoulder, and Zuko forces himself to look down to find Aang standing next to him, expression soft, but not pitying. Never pitying. It’s bearable, somehow.
“Let’s go to the gardens.” He suggests. “C’mon, I bet it’s nice out.”
Zuko nods, a lump in his throat, and they walk out of the chambers with no further preamble. Katara starts discussing post-war policies she wants to bring up in the next meeting they’re all forced to attend, and Aang starts agreeing with her, adding his own additions with emphatic enthusiasm, and Zuko says nothing, content to listen to their plans for the future.
The gardens would be pitch-black, if not for how bright Yue is shining down on them, casting everything in a soft pale-blue.
Suki, Toph, and Sokka are already out here, sitting in the grass. Sokka’s got his head in Suki’s lap, and Toph is sprawled out next to them, plucking cherries from a bowl and spitting the seeds as far as she can.
“Sparky!” Toph crows. “Was wondering when you were gonna show up!”
“He’s Fire Lord Sparky, now, Toph,” Aang corrects, face solemn. “He has important Fire Lord things to do.”
“Oh yes,” Toph agrees gravely. “Very important Fire Lord duties. Like looking like a stuck-up ass.”
“I don’t look like a-” Zuko splutters indignantly, and then stops. “Wait.”
Toph cackles and throws a cherry pit at him. “You’re stupid.”
“So you’ve told me. Many, many times.” He sits down next to her.
Aang and Katara sit too, and for a while, there’s a companionable silence.
Soft, far-away music floats over the walls of the courtyard. The small, end-of-summer, breeze that pushes the tree-branches is warm, and there’s nearly a perfect reflection of Yue’s light in the pond. Zuko begins to unravel his hair from its holding-place.
Sokka breaks the silence, lifting his head out of Suki’s lap to tilt his head up at Yue. “What’s next?”
Zuko finishes pulling down his top-knot. He stares at the crown in his hands. There’s something heavy in his stomach, like apprehension, but somehow, it doesn’t seem an unbearable weight. “What’s next?”
Sokka nods. “What do we do, now?”
“We fix it.” Aang says. He’s sitting ramrod straight, legs crossed and bright robes still vibrant in the dark. His expression is as old as the trees he’s sitting beneath, as though he holds as much wisdom and strength and history in his twelve-year-old body as they do.
“There’s so much to fix.” Katara says. “The Earth Kingdom needs help, the tribe is nowhere near recovered, we don’t even know how they’re doing in the North-”
“That doesn’t mean it can’t be done, Katara.” Suki counters. “We have to start somewhere, don’t we?”
“But where do we start?” She wrings her hands, and Aang reaches over to envelop hers within his own. “With the refugees seeking shelter? Do we rebuild Ba Sing Se? Are the adults even going to listen to us?”
“Listen, we ended the war on our own. If the adults don’t listen to us, we’ll rebuild it on our own, too.” Toph says, crossing her arms and tilting her chin up.
“Big words from someone who said, and I quote ‘Fuck these meetings, fuck everyone, I’m going to go tear up the palace’, three days ago.” Zuko teases, if only to break the tension, and Toph bristles.
“Everyone’s stupid!” Toph throws her hands up. “I still want to help them, though!”
“Everyone is stupid.” Sokka sighs. “So, Zuko? What are we doing? What do we do now?”
Zuko is quiet for a moment. It’s hard, these days. He spent so long only looking twenty-four hours ahead, focused on survival, making sure his family was safe, that looking ahead to weeks, and months, and years- feels almost as unnatural as not slipping on his seal-skin boots and gearing up for a hunt with Sokka.
“Aang’s right,” he says finally, meeting the Avatar’s look. “We’re going to fix it. No matter how long it takes.”
When Zuko closes his eyes one night, after a long, long day of re-learning court etiquette and staring at meeting documents until his eyes burn, and opens them to a clear blue sky and not a sun in sight, for the first time, he isn’t panicked by it.
“Hello, child.”
The woman seems smaller than he remembers, not as luminescent. She sits at the edge of the bank, dipping her hand in the clear water, her white robes splayed out around her. Zuko bows his head low and stares at the green grass until he hears her say,
“Rise.”
So he does. He doesn’t require any prompting; he knows how this goes. He sits next to her on the bank and glances at the water. Faces, shapes, indistinct colors, appear in the ripples and disappear just as quickly.
“Are you going to tell me of my fate?” Zuko asks.
The woman laughs. It doesn’t sound much like Mom’s laugh did, and now that Zuko can see her face clearly- his consciousness not muddled by the pain of sickness, injury, death- she doesn’t look much like her, either.
“To think that you still believe that fate is immutable,” She chuckles. Her hand passes through Zuko’s loose hair, warm and light.
“Is it not?” Zuko blinks up at her. “Is that not why you saved me? Why I’m here, now?”
“Rivers flow in one direction. That does not mean they’re not subject to diversion, overflow, drought.” She brings her golden gaze down upon him. “You did well, light-child. But do you think that your fate has concluded, somehow?”
Zuko is silent for a moment. Aang and Katara had taken off to the Earth Kingdom a few days ago to help assist in the refugee camps, Toph in tow to be dropped off at home for a brief visit. Suki had reunited with her girls, and was making preparations to return to Kyoshi Island, with promises to visit often and to try to convince the Governor to open up trade. Sokka is still here, along with the men of the Tribe, slowly but surely helping to create policy and reparations that were fair and equitable in a nation that had refused to see anyone outside of it as worthy of such in a century.
Zuko is-
Zuko is tired, a lot. There are many, many people who do not want to see him on the throne, and have already tried to depose him. But Azula is getting better, and Mai and Ty Lee had come to visit just yesterday, and Ty Lee had nearly tackled Zuko in a tight hug. Uncle is just down the street, having opened a new tea shop, as he claimed he was too old for politics, but he still gives Zuko advice on everything from crops in the south to diplomacy anytime he asks for it.
It is hard work, but it is necessary work. And it is good work.
“Well, I did what you asked. I helped restore balance to the world, did I not?”
“Have you?” The woman tilts her head. “Your work is just beginning, child.”
Zuko nods slowly. He brings his hand down to the water and submerges it, watches the colors run over his skin.
“Alright.” He says. “Alright. I’m ready for it.”
The Jasmine Dragon is hardly a three minutes’ walk from the main gate of the palace, and yet, it takes Zuko the better part of the afternoon to convince Captain Kaito to allow him to go without a battalion of guards, so long as he promises to stick close to Suki, who is dressed in full Kyoshi Warrior regalia.
“I’ve got Azula!” He gestures at his little sister, who is filing her long, red nails with a bored expression on her face. “She’s practically a human weapon!”
“He’s right,” she agrees, extending her nails out to study them.
“Alright.” Kaito relents. “If you’re not back by sunset-”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Sokka waves the guard off and hauls Zuko off the couch. “Cmon, I gotta kick your uncle’s ass in Pai Sho.”
“You can try.” Azula languidly. “He’s a rather fierce opponent.”
“Well, he hasn’t met me.” Sokka puffs his chest out, and Zuko bites back a fond grin.
His brother has shot up nearly five inches in the twelve months they’ve been in the Fire Nation and looks more like Hakoda than he ever had before. The rest of the tribe has returned home to help with rebuilding, but Sokka stuck around. “Mostly to keep the knuckle-head from getting murdered,” He had explained to Hakoda and Bato, grinning wickedly. “We all know how accident-prone he is.”
Zuko had acted outraged at the time, but was incredibly grateful to have his brother at his side as he attempted to navigate the absolute minefield that was a post-war government.
Besides, Zuko thought absently, months ago at midnight as he had signed the paper officially designating Sokka as the Southern Water Tribe ambassador to the Fire Nation, the title fit him well.
He had glanced out the window at the full moon, and wondered if Yue would have thought so, too.
Sokka would be returning home soon. But for now, for this one afternoon, despite missing the others, he still had his brother at his side, one of his sisters at his other side, and his friend with him, and he was determined to enjoy it.
It’s late afternoon; the sun has dipped below the temple, reflecting golden and bright on the roof. Sokka and Suki are walking ahead, hands linked, arguing animatedly about something Zuko wouldn’t have been able to suss out if he tried, and are through the door of the Jasmine Dragon before Zuko and Azula have even crossed the busy market street.
“C’mon!” Sokka yells, waving at them. “You’re so slow!”
“We’re coming!” Zuko yells back, and turns to tell Azula to hurry up, but finds his sister stopped, face stone and golden eyes fixed on the sign of the tea shop.
“Azula.” Zuko says.
She shakes her head. “I haven’t… I haven’t spoken to him.”
Zuko blinks in surprise. Uncle Iroh has been to the palace many, many times, and each time, had told Zuko that he was stopping in to see Azula before he left. “But, he-”
“I never let him.” She tightens her hands into fists. There is a bright spark behind her eyes that reminds Zuko distantly that Azula could set this entire market ablaze if she chose to. That destruction comes as naturally to his sister as breathing. But she hasn’t destroyed. She hasn’t, not once.
“He doesn’t hate you.” Zuko says softly.
“You don’t know that.” Azula snaps. “A crown on your head does not immediately bestow the wisdom of a king, Zu-zu.”
Zuko has to stifle a laugh. Did their mother ever know about Azula’s proclivity towards dramatics?
“It’s not about wisdom, Azula.” Zuko says, and begins walking towards the shop.
Azula glares daggers at him, but follows him across the street.
“I know he doesn’t hate you.” Zuko opens the door to the shop. “Because even when you’re angry with someone you love, you still love them. And he loves you.”
Azula opens her mouth to argue back, but stops, eyes fixed on something in the tea shop. Her expression immediately morphs into something Zuko doesn’t recognize, and she steps through the doorway. Zuko follows, and finds Uncle behind the counter, serving Suki and Sokka mooncakes, and Sokka setting up a Pai Sho board. Uncle stills as they enter and puts down the teapot, a gentle smile spreading across my niece.
“My niece, my nephew,” He says, opening his arms wide. “Welcome home.”
“I have hated words, and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.”
Marcus Zusak, The Book Thief