Chapter Text
When Yue was born, she was still and silent, the tiny rise and fall of her chest the only sign that she had not been born dead.
Many of her people assumed she would die. That she would slip away, small and frail and fleeting, like all the others before her had.
They had whispered many things about her, quietly, where no one could scold them for disrespect.
They whispered about how her mother would be devastated when her baby died, ensuring that she would never have a child of her own to raise and love.
About how the child’s father would have to remarry to ensure that his bloodline persisted and his place as chief remained unquestioned.
About how it was so sad, that something so small would have to die, yet again, in the heart of winter, with eyes that never learned to see and a heart that never learned to love.
Her father, Arnook, held her for the first time, taking in her tiny face and her delicate, unmoving limbs. It wasn’t the first time he’d lost a child before their time, and he feared it wouldn’t be the last, but something about this one made his throat tighten and his eyes water. As if it was his first time losing a child at all.
Akari, his wife, seemed to be in a daze for the next couple of days. She had been recovering from childbirth, with strict orders to not get out of bed, and yet Akari couldn’t stop herself from getting up and going out into the freezing cold to stare up at the brightness of the moon.
One night she simply shook him awake, eyes wide with desperation. “She’s getting weaker, honey. I know what she needs. I know what we can do.”
She led him down to the spirit oasis with limbs that should’ve been weaker than they were and a baby in her arms that barely breathed at all.
When they reached the edge of the pool, Arnook noticed, with a heavy heart, that somewhere on the walk to this place, his daughter had stopped breathing altogether.
“Sweetheart.” he said in a tortured whisper. “Sweetheart, I think she’s gone.”
Akari looked down at the baby in her arms, and her face pinched up like she was trying not to cry. “It’s okay,” she told him, looking away, “I know how to fix this. The spirits told me what to do. I can fix this.”
She knelt down, careful and loving, and placed their child in the water.
For a moment there was nothing, and the only sound that was heard was the unsteady breathing of a husband and a wife.
The only thing that was seen was a pair of parents and their child, who was still and cold in the water, looking like a drowning victim beneath the moon’s shine.
Then a cool glow erupted from the water that surrounded the infant’s small form, encasing her in shell of light.
Yue’s short black hair turned white, and her eyes blinked open, sparkling bright blue in the moonlight.
A mark gleamed on her wrist, marking her as a daughter of the moon for the rest of her life.
•o0o•
When Zuko was born, he came into the world whimpering rather than crying. He was smaller than most babies usually were, and some of the more superstitious midwives attributed it to the unlucky season he’d been born into.
The fire lilies weren’t in bloom yet. That was a sign of weak or nonexistent firebending. That simply wasn’t acceptable, for a member of the royal family. It made the people who lived in the palace nervous.
Nonetheless, the candles in the room had flickered and surged wildly, as if tormented by a wind that wasn’t present.
His mother, tired and aching, cradled him close and smiled through her pain. She had never felt a love like this. She hadn’t felt love at all, in a long time.
Ursa looked at her son, and she saw a healthy, miracle of a child, all wrapped up in soft red cloth, small and helpless and perfect.
When Ozai looked at his son, at his squirming limbs and pathetic whining, all he saw was weakness. Ozai had never liked weakness.
“He’s too small.” Ozai criticized when he was handed the boy. “You only truly had one job, Ursa. The least you could have done was keep him healthy.”
Ozai has eyed his son, dissatisfied and resigned. “And he was born in the barren season. He’s probably a non-bender...”
“He may bend,” Ursa defended, a desperate look in her eyes as she weakly reached for the child that Ozai deliberately held out of her reach. “Give it time.”
“We are members of the royal family. We do not have time to wait and hope for him to bend. We can have no one doubt the superior nature of my family, Ursa.” His eyes were bored, uncaring. “How can we do that with a non-bender for a son?”
Zuko will not remember what happened after that, but to be fair, no one that young remembers much of anything. He will forget the flames that licked his skin and made him scream. He will forget the searing heat and the fear that clouded his head.
Princess Ursa, though, will never be able to forget the way her son looked when he was set on fire.
When Zuko stopped crying and flailing they thought he was dead. Ursa had been softly crying while the midwives looked on in shock and horror. Ozai had felt nothing.
The flames died, leaving the smell of burned flesh in every nose and the echo of a dying child’s screams in every ear.
Then, the boy’s tiny chest moved up, and down, and up again, and when his eyes opened, they were a bright, molten gold.
His flesh was healthy again, pink and soft and untouched aside from the sun symbol that now rested below the corner of his left eye.
•o0o•
Zuko was five years old, and his world was a gigantic field of fire lilies, sprawling out as far as the eye could see. Their vibrant petals blurred into the bright orange and red of the sunset that was frozen in the sky. There were no buzzing insects to plague him. There was, in fact, no sound at all.
He decided this was okay, since he’d never really liked bugs anyway, and got up on his tiny legs to explore. He dug holes in the dirt, searching for worms (he never found any, sadly) and wove flower stems into necklaces like his mother had taught him to do.
He wished he could bring the flower necklaces out of his dream. This batch was his best one yet, and if he could bring them home with him, he could give some to Lu Ten! Then maybe he could convince him to teach him how to fight with swords!
These activities were only fun for a short while. Zuko didn’t know why his dream was lasting this long, and he probably should’ve been worried about getting home by now.
The dream just marched on, hazy and warm and happy like only a dream could be, unconcerned by the real world, disconnected from its problems.
Zuko’s boredom made him instantly aware of when things began to shift. His fingers twitched when the grass he held in his hand turned cold and started to wither. His gaze caught on the sky as colors began to drain from it, as pale white clouds poured over the horizon and smothered the sun.
The biggest change, though, was when white started to fall from the sky.
At first, Zuko thought it might’ve been ash.
Whenever something burned back home, ash was left behind, light enough to scatter itself when the wind blew.
But ash wasn’t cold to the touch, and so he watched as it fell from the sky in a steady rain, pelting the earth and sprinkling Zuko’s hair with white.
He reached out to touch one of the flakes, and he gasped aloud when it melted in his hand.
Was this snow? Was this what coated the poles? And...why was he dreaming of snow in the first place?
His thoughts were interrupted by a ripple in the air to his left. The world seemed to tilt and bend, stretching and pulling in the vague shape of a small person.
A moment passed, and he could see her more clear than anything he could see in this dreamworld.
It was a girl. She was small, like him, with shining blue eyes and white hair that seemed bright enough to rival the moon.
Zuko jumped back, startled, even in his dazed state, by her sudden appearance. “Whoa! What are you doing here?” He was fairly sure he’d never seen someone that looked like her before, so why was he dreaming of her?
The girl looked confused, and she tilted her head, eyes glittering. “I’m sorry...who are you?”
Zuko gaped at her, unsure what to do.
•o0o•
“Mama?” Yue’s big blue eyes met her mother’s, and the woman automatically steeled herself to reject her daughter if she asked for another helping of stew.
This winter was shaping up to be worse than their last, and food would most likely become much scarcer in the weeks to come. She couldn’t afford to waste it all in a few days, although she knew they were all hungry.
Even for the chief and his family, times had been hard. How could they eat well while their people starved?
“Yes, sweetie?” Akari smiled tiredly, trying to appear stronger than she actually was. It simply wouldn’t do to worry Yue. She had enough on her plate already.
The her illness had worsened over the past week, and for most of the day she’d been in bed with a fever. She had gotten out of bed just a few hours before, feeling well enough to eat, which was a rare thing since she’d first gotten sick.
“Mama...I met a boy who made fire in my dreams last night.”
Akari stiffened at first, alarmed at the word ‘fire,’ but relaxed when Yue explained it had been a dream.
“That’s nice, dear. Did he say anything to you?”
“Yeah,” her beautiful daughter said, blinking innocently up at her mother. “He said he was a prince of the fire nation. Isn’t that weird?”