Work Text:
“I’m the Avatar,” says the boy in front of Zuko. “If I go with you, will you leave these people alone?”
He’s much shorter than Zuko thought he would be. He’s more than a foot shorter than Zuko himself, and built like a twig; his orange and yellow robes reflect the clothes Zuko has seen in his Airbender research, though. And he has blue arrows tattooed all over his skin, including his bald forehead. So that is another point for the Airbender column.
But…
The kid’s cheeks are so round. His eyes are so wide. He’s so...small.
“How old are you?”
The child flinches back at his harsh words. Zuko can feel his men and women shift on their feet behind him; he must have surprised them. He’s surprised at himself, really. He didn't know what he was going to say until the words were out of his mouth. The child blinks, brow furrowing. “I’m...twelve?”
Zuko stares. Something hot and deep and horrible is rising in his stomach, leaking through his chest, cresting at the base of his throat. “Twelve,” he echoes. “Twelve?”
“Well, technically I’m a hundred and twelve!”
“Aang, shut up!”
Zuko looks at the Water Tribe peasant. He’s still sitting on his behind where he fell in the snow. Where Zuko threw him. Right. The boy sneers at Zuko but the terrible heat, cloying and choking, is rising still and Zuko can't concentrate enough to sneer back. The older woman near the front of the crowd kneels next to the boy and Zuko is startled to realize she reminds him of Uncle Iroh.
“Where is the Avatar?” Zuko asks the Water Tribe peasant, since he seems like the only one here with any common sense. The Water Tribe peasant looks at Zuko like he’s grown a second head. His eyes flicker back to the child, whose head is tilted in confusion, before returning to Zuko.
“ I’m the Avatar,” the child insists.
It’s easier to snort derisively than consider the heat pricking the backs of his eyes now. His head pounds as he says, not taking his eyes off the Water Tribe boy, “ He isn’t the Avatar.”
“Yes, I am!”
Water Tribe’s jaw sets. “Even if he were the Avatar, we wouldn’t let you have him, Fire Nation.”
He spits ‘Fire Nation’ like a swear and Zuko can’t even unglue his tongue from the roof of his mouth to retort. The not-Avatar stamps his foot. “But I am!”
“No!” Zuko whirls on him and the child stumbles back a step. Zuko’s crew tense, their fists flashing up. They’re ready for a fight, ready to attack the boy stupid enough to claim Avatar status and Zuko doesn’t even think before he grunts and signals for them to stand down. His lieutenant makes a disgruntled noise but does as he is bid. The others follow suit.
The kid--Aang?--still looks confused and determined and self-sacrificial. He plants his feet in the snow. “I am!” He snaps, but his voice is so young he could simply be throwing a tantrum over his bedtime in any other situation.
“No, you’re not!”
“Why not?”
Zuko matches the kid’s raised voice with his own. He’s good at shouting; his crew could tell stories. “You’re too young!”
Because that’s just it. That’s the problem Zuko has stumbled upon. This not-Avatar, this boy with all the markings of the Airbenders, this Aang, is twelve. Twelve. He’s so little, so skinny and puny and alone and probably cold in the snow because Agni knows Zuko is a foot taller and half a barrel wider and he’s shivering. Aang is--is a child.
Aang is a year younger than Zuko had been at the Agni Kai.
“What?” Water Tribe interjects intelligently. He waves his elder off and pushes his feet underneath him, eyeing Zuko like he’s wondering if he’ll set him aflame for getting up. Zuko feels sudden hysterical laughter bubbling up but swallows it down.
Zuko flings a hand out at Aang. “He’s too young! He can’t be the Avatar.”
The boy--who may be an Airbender, but certainly not the Avatar because the Avatar has been missing for a century and it’s much more likely that Zuko’s father and grandfather and great grandfather simply...missed a few Airbenders--makes a frustrated noise. “There isn’t an age limit on being the Avatar.”
Zuko opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again like a surprised tiger-koi before scowling. “Well, there should be!”
Zuko’s scar twinges, old pain radiating out across his skin and muscles like ripples in a disturbed pool. He lets his good eye narrow so the world looks equally slitted but still the pain remains. Aang--who is definitely not the Avatar--shivers at the grimace Zuko shoots him but doesn’t back away. Having apparently decided not to wait until Zuko’s fit of insanity has passed, the Water Tribesman finally pushes himself to his feet and, utterly unarmed, places himself in front of Aang with his fists raised. His warpaint is smeared and blotted; he might be Zuko’s age. He might be younger.
“Aang, run!”
“No! I won’t leave you, Sokka. It’s my responsibility as the Avatar to--"
This twelve year old cannot be the Avatar, because if he's the Avatar Zuko has to take him back to the Fire Nation--has to take him back to Zuko's father . He’ll be a prisoner of war, not a crown prince, and if--if Zuko’s father can do what he did to a crown prince then--
The scar pulses. Zuko hides a wince. Aang is a year younger than Zuko was. He’s twelve. He’s younger than Azula.
He’s twelve.
“Shut up!” Zuko barks at them. “ You ,” he points at Water Tribe, who bristles, “can’t beat me in a fight especially with my crew backing me up, and you ,” he points at Aang, “are not the Avatar.”
(If his father could hurt his own son so badly that the pain hasn’t left in three years, what will he do to this child with the eyes of a koala-lamb, who is willing to trust the honor of enemies at the drop of a boomerang?)
Before Aang can puff himself up for what is shaping up to be a truly amazing screaming match, Zuko huffs and turns on his heel. Lieutenant Jee and his subordinates hold back flinches as their prince turns his back on enemies. But no boomerang comes sailing into his skull, so Zuko is willing to chalk it up as a success.
“The Avatar.” Zuko announces, his voice only slightly trembling, “Is. Not. Here. We’re leaving.”
No one moves. The wind howls through the gap Zuko only vaguely remembers carving into their snow wall. “Sir?”
“Wait,” the kid pipes up. “What?”
“Shut. Up. Aang!”
“But I’m right here--urk!”
The Avatar is so small the Water Tribe peasant can pick him up in one arm and cover his mouth with the other. Aang squirms and wriggles ineffectually, but he doesn’t put up enough of a fight to cause too much trouble for the older boy to keep ahold of him. Water Tribe has a strange, knowing glint in his eye when their gazes meet. Slowly, tentatively, Water Tribe nods at Zuko.
Zuko can feel that heat at the backs of his eyes again. It’s flooding him, drowning out the throbs of pain his scar causes every second of the day. It drowns out the pain in his head, and the constant ache in his chest. He has to breathe the icy air in slowly to keep all that heat inside. His inner flame is trying to kill him, trying to use a sudden fever to drive out the knowledge that the Avatar is a lost little boy.
He’s twelve.
(Zuko was thirteen.)
Zuko doesn’t nod back, exactly, but he tilts one last glance at Water Tribe before spinning around and marching back to the Wani. “The Avatar isn’t in the South Pole,” He tells Lieutenant Jee when the man falls in line at his right shoulder. Their boots clang against the gangplank. Snow slips into the chinks of Zuko’s armor, cooling the rapidly heating skin beneath. His head swims.
The Southern Water Tribe watches as the Wani retreats. Zuko stands at the prow and watches that boy in the orange and yellow stare back at him. Aang the twelve year old waves as they leave. Zuko refrains from waving back. His fever is getting worse. Part of Zuko wonders frantically what he’ll do now, what to say to his crew who definitely saw a living Airbender in the South Pole, wonders if he’ll ever go home, wonders if he’s making the right choice.
But the Avatar is--is just a child. Aang is just a baby.
Uncle Iroh sets a gentle hand on Zuko’s shoulder when the Southern Water Tribe is nothing more than a speck on the horizon. Zuko wonders if he can feel the fever radiating from Zuko’s skin underneath his armor. He wonders if he’s surprised Uncle Iroh as much as he has surprised himself.
The Wani awaits Zuko’s orders.
“Get the ship underway; I want to get away from here as soon as possible. We’ll send intelligence with the message that the Avatar is still missing back to Father in the morning.”