Chapter Text
Zuko stares at the mirror with muted horror.
There is a child he sees, a tiny boy standing dumbstruck.
He has tiny hands,
a stern slash for a mouth, which just doesn't fit the childish face.
Zuko is a Fire lord of many years.
He has sat on the throne for decades.
His hair now shines with streaks of gray.
But as he moves, so does the boy in the mirror.
He does not see himself as he knows himself to be.
It can't be.
He inhales loudly as he glances at his hands, which are suddenly so tiny,
and all the furniture is too large. The world is too large.
This boy, it just cannot be him.
So why does Zuko look into the mirror and see him?
He blinks furiously and tries to steady himself,
even as he flinches from the copious amounts of light reaching into his left eye,
even as he reels from the sudden change in depth perception.
Even as sound suddenly surrounds him from all angles, not just his right,
and it just doesn't make sense.
He has no scar, he has no scar, he has no scar.
He is a boy again.
He wonders mutely if he's dreaming.
But he hasn't dreamed of his childhood in years,
it is behind him.
Then why.
He stumbles away and out, away from the accursed mirror.
He hasn't been in this room for years.
This is not his chamber.
It is the chamber he'd had years and years ago.
Zuko grabs the nearest vase and hurls it across the room.
The porcelain shatters and the noise thunders through the air.
The sound is altogether too raw, too real.
A bolt of pain streaks through his head.
"Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up." He hisses to himself, pulling at his hair roughly.
He ignores the sounds of a distant door opening.
"Oh, are you alright Zuzu?"
Zuko freezes at the sound, that voice.
Azula laughs, voice filled with cruel mirth.
"Such a shame about mother, really, but it's been a week already since she left, surely you can't be so pathetic that you're still upset!"
Zuko doesn't reply.
The words barely register, and he's far too busy staring at her with barely disguised shock.
He hasn't seen his sister is years,
and even then she's long been presumed dead.
The last he remembers of her is a crazed, broken woman.
Not this, not this child.
Good gods, she's even tinier than he is.
She stares at him vindictively, waiting for a reaction,
then ultimately scoffs and leaves with a pointed sneer, as Zuko does not reply.
He just, can't.
What is happening.
Zuko wonders if he's finally gone mad,
it couldn't be that impossible could it?
Maybe madness was something hereditary in their family.
Frankly speaking, at this point, he wouldn't be surprised.
It's just, everything feels far too real.
But he's still inclined to believe this is some overtly realistic hallucination.
How could something like this even be possible?
Is he in the past,
because holy fuck.
He's never quite messed up this bad before but there was always a first time for everything wasn't there.
And luck had always had it in for him.
Zuko walks to the nearest window shakily, staring at the rising sun.
There is a breath of power in the wind,
a stillness in the current.
Did Zuko die? Did he come back in time?
Zuko inhales and exhales.
In, out.
He must have fucked up something in the spirit world.
Or upset some spirit.
The sun heats his skin.
And Zuko swears he feels the heat coil around him,
like something sentient, like something powerful.
Like the flames are calling for him.