Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dear Ty Lee, 

So I know it’s been almost a year since my last letter and Mai probably wants to use me for target practice and maybe Azula is upset about it too. I figure you’re probably not happy with me either, but you’re nicer than they are so I’m hoping you’ll actually read this and give me the chance to explain myself.

When I last wrote, I think I told you I was going to investigate a swamp known for spiritual activity. I went, and it was a success in some ways. I got guidance to go to the North Pole, so that’s what I was ready to do once I got back to my ship. But, instead, I was stranded for several weeks because my crew was suddenly reassigned away from me. 

I got on the bad side of some commander at the beginning of my journey, and I think he sent one of his captains to give me a hard time. But this captain is a piece of work and has it out for me personally. At least that’s what I think. I won’t bore you with all the bullshit he’s pulled, but the biggest and latest (haven’t run into him since, thank Agni) thing he did was that he took almost my entire crew without immediate replacements. 

As you probably remember, I had a pretty good relationship with my crew, as well as had a few friends. He didn’t like that and took them away just to mess with me. And, well, it worked. I was upset for a long time, and even if I did know I had letters from you all waiting for my response, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to write a response because I had nothing good to write about.

My friend Chanda is forcing me to write that I was throwing a tantrum. I highly disagree. My reaction was justified for the situation! She doesn’t know——

[The paper has several ink blots and a small tear around here. The following words are in a different handwriting.]

  He was throwing a tantrum.

The point is, I didn’t know I had to reply to you and wasn’t willing to write letters at the time anyways. Then a lot of stuff happened and I… Well I would say I forgot but that’s a lie and Chanda is about to steal the paper from me again. I was upset that you and Mai were ignoring me. And I recently admitted this to my friends and then my steward realized she’d been holding on to your letters for me this whole time and forgot about it! (But I can’t be too mad at her, because someone tried to tell me to write to you, but I also forgot about that...)

To make up for this, let me write about my year since then. I’ve been really busy. I hope the stories make up for my silence. And I’m sorry. I didn’t write that first. I should have. But I am sorry. I know we weren’t close when I was still back home, and I always thought of you as Azula’s friend. But it meant a lot to me when you said we were friends, and I hope we can continue to be…

So, let me start my year report by telling you about these whacky musicians I met when Uncle was helping me find a way to the North Pole——

When Zuko stepped out of the deserter general’s tent to the sight of Ensign Jae and Kavi arguing, he thought his entire world was going to shatter around him. Again.

Maybe it would have if this happened before finding the lóng egg, before reading Yanchen’s memoirs, before carrying the memory and secrets of mixed-bending creatures and people. A Zuko who did not have those experiences would have been too betrayed to give Kavi a chance to explain. 

But Zuko did understand the weight of carrying secrets, of wanting to reveal them but being terrified of the reaction. He knew how that guilt curdled in his stomach and made him upset with himself. While he didn’t personally know the level of grief Kavi experienced, Yangchen did. And Zuko could see echoes of Yanchen’s words in his cousin’s best friend—his partner as Akari had been to Yangchen. 

So Zuko listened and his world did not shatter. Instead, he dared to hope.

Lu Ten may not have set out with the same goals as Zuko, but ultimately their visions of the future were the same. When he first learned the truth of the Air Nomad genocide, he’d been afraid of disrupting the war effort. Now, Zuko knew his cousin was right. It was difficult to accept, but if the war was strangling their own people, then it had to end if there was to be any hope of airbenders returning to the world. 

But where Zuko was alone and uncertain in how to begin planning, let alone bring his vision to reality, Lu Ten had found like-minded people and built an entire organization. With Lu Ten gone, his organization was offering to help Zuko . 

Before he could accept that offer, Zuko needed to reveal his own secrets. If Bun Ma and Ju Long were still here, he would have confided in them by now. This was too big to handle on his own, and Zuko was willing to risk trusting Lu Ten’s Wings. Even without the whole story they were willing to help him, and it seemed despite keeping things secret from Zuko, Kavi cared . 

Really, how could he not forgive Kavi when they were guilty of the same offense?

In the year and a half since Zuko first visited the Western Air Temple, nothing should have changed. The ruins were much harder to find than the northern temple, and a mere year would not have a visible effect after decades of sitting abandoned. Nothing had changed about the place, but everything had changed for Zuko. 

“I wasn’t in the right mindset last time I was there. I could have easily missed something!” Zuko said to Uncle to justify his sudden decision to return. He grew sheepish, half an act, half genuine. “And I’d like to see if anything remains of what Yangchen wrote about her home.”

The excuse worked and no one questioned the last-second course set as the Sazanami left port. When Zuko argued with Uncle about exploring without him and conceded to Kavi acting as chaperone, no one found it suspicious. (And no, Chanda, he did not throw a tantrum . He only shouted a little when Uncle was being stubborn.) 

When Zuko asked his friends if they wanted to see the temple with him, well it was almost expected. (If Zuko had been counting on Chanda’s discomfort with heights to reject his invitation, that was only for Zuko’s guilty conscience to know. ) 

Of the remaining Wings aboard the Sazanami , Ensign Jae and Petty Officer Takehiko (hadn’t that been a surprise) were high ranking enough to slip away for the day without garnering unwanted attention.

And so, Zuko returned to the Western Air Temple and realized how much truth had been in his excuses to Uncle. Because while his companions cautiously climbed down to the temple proper, Zuko jumped off the edge of the cliff and let the wind carry him down on his glider. He had climbed down those steep, treacherous steps determined to hunt down the Avatar and return home, no matter what. Now, he rode on the wind with a dream bigger than simply going back home. 

“I don’t see why we had to trek all the way here,” Takehiko griped as Zuko landed next to the group. “Anywhere off that damn boat would have been fine.”

“Coming back here is important to Zuko’s goals,” Kavi said with a conspiratory glance to Zuko. Ever since he finished reading Yangchen’s memoirs and gave it back to Zuko, he’d been giving Zuko those looks. They hadn’t been able to properly talk about what he read yet—neither of their sign language was up to par for that level of conversation—so Zuko wasn’t sure how much Kavi managed to infer about his plans or mixed-bending beyond Siniq’s addendum. 

Jae sat heavily on the base of a broken pillar and wiped the sweat from her face with the bottom of her shirt. “I don’t want to complain either, but this level of security wasn’t what I had in mind when I said we needed to have a meeting.”

“I- Uh-” How was Zuko supposed to justify his choice of location without it sounding like dramatics? They could have just gone to the next port and met somewhere off the ship. But… It felt important that they really understood the loss of the Air Nomads, and how dual-benders had met the same fate for similar reasons.

“Do you want to find it before we talk?” Kavi asked, grinning like he expected Zuko to jump at the offer. 

Instead, Zuko’s question was echoed by the rest of their group.

“Find what?”

As Kavi floundered, Amphon fully focused on the conversation rather than the scenery. “Oh! Is there a mural you want to find?”

“If you dragged us here for a fucking-,” Takehiko grumbled, cutting himself short under Jae’s stern glare. 

“No! I wanted us here because, well, I’m asking you to care about airbenders! But we’re all taught lies about them. So, even if Lu Ten didn’t- you don’t agree with the war, that doesn’t mean you’ll really understand what I’m asking your help for.”

As the others considered his explanation, Kavi shook his head and pushed his hand through his hair. “Zuko, I’m sorry, I’m a bit confused. I thought you lent me Yanghchen’s memoirs because- Well, besides the obvious, which I greatly appreciated, it has helped a lot, but- Are we not here to find Akari’s dragon egg?”

Takehiko’s jaw dropped. Jae pushed up her glasses. Amphon held her cheeks in her hands with a wistful sigh. They all spoke at once. 

“A what now?”

“Kavi, that was centuries ago. Any egg wouldn’t be, um, still here?”

“Yangchen must have protected it! That’s so romantic.”

Any nerves that would have bubbled up in revealing this well-kept secret were overshadowed by pure shock. How did Zuko manage to completely overlook the fact that Kavi had no reason to suspect he already found the egg? Well, there went Zuko’s intended script on how to have this conversation.

“Uh- So about that…” Zuko carefully pulled the bundled egg out of his bag and pushed the blanket aside to reveal its soft glow.

Kavi dropped to the ground, unable to support himself in his laughter. As Amphon began bombarding Zuko with excited questions, Jae stared in shocked silence.

Takehiko dropped his head into his hands. “Fuck me, the layabout was right .”

“It’s only fair if you know the full story before choosing to trust and help me.”

Jae thought Zuko was being a dramatic teenager when he said that. What could he possibly have to say that would make them wary of helping him? ‘Making a world where airbenders could return’ was vague enough that Jae hadn’t put much thought to it. She was ashamed to admit she simply assumed it was, again, Zuko being dramatic in how he expressed wanting to end the war. Well, she learned her lesson now. Zuko was, without a doubt, as dramatic as they came, but he said what he meant.  

Spirits help them, Zuko might be even more radical than Lu Ten . 

Banished and burned at thirteen, Zuko had every reason to ignore signs that the world wasn’t right. Instead, he found his ancestor’s legacy in the home of his enemy and began to question . He befriended colony-born soldiers; lived, learned, and flourished with people of the Si Wong, Foggy Swamp, and Northern Water Tribe; forced himself to accept the truth of the war, alone in a spirit library, and began to plot how to bring freedom back. 

Zuko didn’t just want to end the war. He wanted to upend the order of the world. 

The Air Nomads were gone, Sozin had made sure of that. But they hadn't been the only ones to bend air. A world where airbenders could return was a world where dual-bending existed. Zuko learned the truth of the war. He also learned a truth about the four nations that had been lost to time. Well, lost to everyone except the Northern Water Tribe.

It sounded ridiculous, impossible , but the more Zuko spoke, the more Jae believed. No one knew how the ability to bend was passed on, but everyone knew that the first people to bend learned from creatures born of the elements. Dual-bending creatures still lived , and if the spirits knew gifts of wind would not be a death sentence, then… New airbenders could come into the world.

But first, the Wings needed to convince the world that a mix of elements wasn’t the unnatural, volatile offense they believed it to be. 

“Alright, so I think our first course of action should be making sure all the Wings are aware about the truth of the Air Nomad genocide,” Kavi said decisively once Zuko concluded his tale. “It was remiss of Lu Ten and I to overlook that. It’s not enough for our members to be against the war, they need to understand and respect the memory of what our nation destroyed.”

“Wait, really?” Zuko exclaimed, as if he’d been expecting them to rescind their offer of help once they knew his whole story.

Amphon scrunched her nose at him. “I joined the Wings to help right some of the wrongs in the world. If I knew just how wrong things were, I- Well, I don’t know what I would have done! But now I know and everyone should know!”

“I think we should start on a small scale outside the Wings.” Jae’s mind raced with the logistical challenge of an underground propaganda campaign. “Let’s see what works with the Sazanami crew. I hand picked the majority of them for being decent sorts. It’ll be a good gauge of the average citizen. We should probably bring Iroh in-”

“Absolutely not.”

“Uncle?! No!”

Jae expected Kavi to object. He tried his best to hide how much he detested General Iroh, but Jae knew how to see through him. Zuko’s abject horror was unexpected, so Jae ignored her friend as she focused on Zuko. “He’s a far cry from the general who led the siege on Ba Sing Se. Lu Ten’s death changed him and I know he cares a lot about you. I’m sure it won't be difficult to convince him to come to our side, if he’s not already.”

“We can’t tell him,” Zuko insisted. He hugged his egg close, curling around it protectively. “I- No matter what his opinion on the war is. He- He killed the last dragon. I can’t- I won’t- We can’t possibly tell him about our plans without him figuring out I have a lóng egg. He’s too smart not to figure it out. I can’t take that risk.”

As much as Jae wanted to defend the man, she didn’t have any facts to support her feelings that Iroh could be trusted. He didn’t seem like the type to destroy the lóng egg, but he didn’t seem like the sort of man who would have been ignorant to Lu Ten’s true nature either. Lu Ten had never trusted his father enough to confide in him, and it seemed Zuko would be following in his cousin’s footsteps. 

“Are we all going to ignore the tiger elephant in the room?” Takehiko drawled. He was too good at sounding like someone who needed to be punched in the face, not like someone who supported their cause. “Prince Zuko, all of this is just a roundabout way to maybe find the Avatar so you can end your banishment. But if we’re caught, banishment is going to be the least of your worries. You’ll be considered a traitor to the Fire Lord.”

Zuko swallowed roughly and closed his eyes to escape from everyone’s sudden attention on him. “I know. But- I’m never returning home without the Avatar anyways . So- I think the spirits have been showing me the path to restoring my honor. If I start fulfilling Akari’s destiny, the Avatar will surely return. I have to risk being branded a traitor to have any hope of returning home and convincing my father to end the war.”

Wind whistled around them.

There were moments in Zuko’s story where it sounded like he thought he could reason with Fire Lord Ozai, as if the Fire Lords had been duped into the war, but Jae had brushed it aside. Hadn’t she learned her lesson? Zuko didn’t say anything he didn't mean!

Takehiko scoffed. “You’ve got to be shitting me. Convince Fire Lord Ozai to just end the war?” 

“I- No, I’m not shitting you!” Zuko secured his egg in its blanket nest, then jumped to his feet. He started pacing, his hands and arms sporadically moving in sign language to accompany his words. “He’s- He’s a reasonable man! A good leader. If he knew the truth of the war and how pointless it is, he’d- He’ll- He can listen to reason. If I can just- I know I can-”

Color drained from Zuko’s face and his breath started growing short and fast. Kavi shot a furious glare at Takehiko, and spoke over Zuko’s rapidly spiraling speech.

“Let’s just move forward with the intention to not get caught and figure out our next steps when we get to them,” he said, daring anyone to challenge Zuko’s delusions by tone alone.

“Exactly!” Zuko dropped to the ground with a heavy, relieved exhale. He whipped out Yangchen’s memoirs and started flipping through the pages. “I have some ideas of where we can go next to work on the crew-”

“Why don’t we have them come here first?” Amphon exclaimed frantically, pale herself as she stared at her friend with wide eyes. It had Zuko brightening with a wide smile as he praised her suggestion.

As they began discussing the logistics of justifying such an excursion, Jae sat back and watched with a frown. Well, if Zuko succeeded in convincing the world to accept dual-bending airbenders, perhaps he could even sway Fire Lord Ozai of all people- Who was Jae kidding? Absolutely not. The Wings found a new mission and possibly a fledgling leader in Zuko. If that meant they needed to protect him from his own father and misplaced trust, well, it’s what Lu Ten would have wanted.

A flickering flame of irritation sat in Kavi’s chest, but it did not flare up and try to choke him in its smokey heat. He let the fire burn beside the glowing flames of hope and love, as he had allowed it before he died and was brought back to life. Yangchen’s words and the love of those around him were helping Kavi keep at bay the inferno of hatred that once consumed him. He still had days when he burned , but they were growing further apart, and he confided in Jae now. She never let him feed the inferno.

So as the idiotic acting captain of the Sazanami barked at the gathered crew, Kavi could share a bemused, annoyed look with Jae and not begin spiraling. He wasn’t perfect. He could be petty and vindictive, but that didn’t define him.

“This is our first mission since our failure at the Northern Stronghold!” Without Zuko’s immediate presence, disdain permeated Haoran’s every word. Nevermind the crew hadn’t failed in finding the Northern Air Temple, it had just taken longer than Haoran wanted it to. “It’s of utmost importance that we do not fail Prince Zuko again!”

Honestly, this man was a pain in the ass. Kavi sighed and rolled his eyes, making Jae struggle to stifle her laughter at the exaggerated expression. Amphon’s suggestion to have the Sazanami crew witness the Air Temple was a brilliant first step toward swaying them against the war. It had been by exploring the Air Temples that Zuko himself began doubting the lies he was raised on. But what could possibly be a valid justification for making the entire crew explore the temple ruins when Zuko had been content going without assistance before?

Zuko hesitantly offered the idea of the crew searching for the heatbenders’ village ruins under the guise of a hideaway Yangchen had built in the mountains. He clearly thought they would shoot down the idea, but it was a great opportunity for their dual-element benders campaign if they did find the ruins. And if they didn’t, the crew still would have gone through the Western Air Temple with a critical eye to ‘recognize airbender architecture’ and then have several days to contemplate what they saw.

Exploring the temple had gone well, especially with Zuko flitting about on his air glider as he explored parts of the temple he previously couldn’t access. The seeds of doubt were sown. But now Haoran decided he needed to take charge. He encouraged Zuko to start surveying the mountain from the sky as he had planned to do, and to leave the mundane task of organizing the crew to him, the acting captain. 

In all of their plotting and scheming, Kavi and Jae had overlooked the Haoran problem. Or, more specifically, how Zuko had yet to realize how incompetent the man was. Zuko thought Haoran’s attitude was the only problem, and believed it had been rectified after his lecture before the crew’s extended shore leave. Unfortunately, that was not the case, if Haoran’s permanent sneer as he assigned the search groups was anything to go by. 

Jae still could not ascertain if Zhao put Haoran in charge of the ship in hopes his idiocy would cause troubles, or if Haoran was purposefully sabotaging Zuko and reporting back to the asshole. They needed to do something about this before Haoran really caused trouble, but Kavi shared Jae’s concern that Zuko wouldn’t be able to act ignorant if he knew there was a possibility Haoran was working for Zhao…

Was Haoran assigning groups at random ? Kavi stared at the man in disbelief as he separated a pair of engineers who worked best together, but kept the deck department almost whole as a group under Takehiko. The deck department was getting absurd in their interactions with Takehiko. There was no way they were going to properly focus together.

Figuring out a permanent solution to the Haoran problem was going to have to wait for another day, but for now, Kavi wasn’t going to let this search fall apart due to Haoran’s idiotic planning. 

“Sir, I could take over from here if you have other work to complete,” Kavi interjected before Haoran dispersed the gathered crew. “I believe Prince Zuko would agree that overseeing the search can be delegated now that you’ve organized it.”

“It is beneath me, isn’t it?” Haoran stroked his beard with a contemplative grin. “Yes, you can send a runner to me if there’s anything that needs my assistance, but surely a weapons head is capable of keeping everyone on track, yes?”

Kavi’s smile did not so much as twitch as he agreed and promised not to let his acting captain down. Not until Haoran was headed up the Sazanami ’s gangway did he let the smile drop as he turned to the crew, who were awkwardly standing in their randomly assigned search groups. 

“Before we head out, let’s make a few adjustments. Yan, go join Souta for Agni’s sake. You both look like lost puma puppies. Takehiko, split your crew between the rest of the groups so they actually get work done. Now, let me explain the purpose of the flares you were given…”

By the end of the week, no signs of an Avatar’s hideaway nor of a lost civilization were found. It was clear to all except for Prince Zuko that Commander Haoran wanted to berate the crew for their failure. But Lieutenant Kavi had personally thanked them for their work before they returned to the Sazanami , and had assured every crew member that they did not deserve any criticism Haoran may impart on them. Emboldened by the praise of a superior officer they respected, the crew were prepared for but did not dread the expected vitriol from their acting captain.

To everyone’s delight, Prince Zuko had flown ahead on his glider and awaited the crew on deck beside Commander Haoran. He openly praised their work and expressed his gratitude, for he had not expected them to succeed but was grateful for them assisting him nonetheless. There was nothing Haoran could say after that, not without undermining the prince. 

Prince Zuko declared his intentions to continue searching for connections to Avatar Yangchen, and expressed his hopes that the crew could continue assisting him now that they were familiar with the architecture and visuals of her people, even if the people had changed since her time.

And so when the Sazanami set sail the following morning, there were some beginning to question what they knew of airbenders, even if they did not yet realize it. 

Ensign Jae had a different realization as Commander Haoran shouted orders like he always did. Few scrambled to listen to him, as most of what he told them was what they were already doing . Instead, many eyes trailed to Lieutenant Kavi, as if asking if they should be doing anything different. 

Perhaps there was a solution to the Haoran problem after all…

Chapter Text

If this is really Prince Zuko, will you marry me?

Dear Prince Zuko,

Ty Lee always said you have bad luck, and I didn’t believe how bad it was until your letter arrived. Sorry, but you missed Ty Lee by about a month. Which doesn’t sound like a close call, but since you haven’t written for so long, I’d say that’s just missing her. 

This is Ty Lum, by the way. I stopped everyone from reading all of your letter once we realized who it was from. You’re welcome. Ty Woo tried to steal it and write a response herself, but Ty Lao is holding her down. Again, you’re welcome.

So, like I was saying, Ty Lee is gone. She ran away from home about a month ago, leaving a note saying she was joining the circus. We don’t know where she is or how to get in contact with her. If you happen to cross paths with her on your travels, please tell her that she owes us big time for covering her butt. So far we’ve successfully tricked our parents so they don’t know she’s missing. Yet. Don’t know how much longer that will last. There’s only so many times we can make an excuse for one of us to be busy so “Ty Lee” can be present. 

I read the first bit of your letter, and just want to say sorry for the rough time you’re having. Mai rarely comes to school these days. I think her mother is making her help with the baby. But I’ve also heard that she’s getting some sort of special tutoring. Anyways, I’ll give everything you wrote to her when I see her next. I’m sure she’ll understand and accept your apology. 

Good luck getting unbanished! 

Ty Lum

There was a prince in the kitchen. There had never been a prince in the kitchen before, at least no kitchen Ru had been in. She had no idea why he was here, but he wasn’t as awkwardly out of place as she expected him to be. Had Prince Zuko been in the kitchen before? Why? When? How? 

Chef Xue greeted Prince Zuko with a warm smile as if nothing was amiss. She didn’t bat an eye, neither at his arms clenched tightly around a tome with dozens of bookmarks sticking out of it nor at his rush of words.

“I was hoping to recreate some dishes from Yangchen’s memoirs to share with everyone when we find Lady Tienhai’s statue!”

“Well, hun, you can run them by me if you don’t mind me working as you do,” Chef Xue said, knife steady and confident on the fish she was filetting. 

Prince Zuko nodded, enthusiastically agreeing to her terms. Ru and the other newly gathered kitchen staff tried not to stare as Chef Xue nodded to the chair in the corner of the kitchen where she would sit to direct them when her knees started acting up. No one sat in that chair except for Chef Xue, but how would Prince Zuko know? He was already opening up his book and talking as he sat.

It was the strangest hour of Ru’s life. Prince Zuko explained a sort of dumpling Avatar Yangchen wrote about, and Chef Xue did her best to figure out how they could recreate it with their limited knowledge. Eventually, Prince Zuko left and Chef Xue had a list of ingredients they would try to find when they made port. 

And then, Prince Zuko kept coming back . Every day between his lessons and late afternoon spar with Lieutenant Kavi, Prince Zuko took up residence in Chef Xue’s chair to puzzle over food made centuries ago. The other day, when Chef Xue’s knees were particularly bad, he took her place at the counter and tried to help cook as she rested! 

“Do you know how to make tsampa?” Prince Zuko asked, seated in Chef’s Xue chair once more this afternoon.

Chef Xue hummed. “Not sure I’ve heard of it before. What’s it made of?”

“Uh- I’m not really sure.” Prince Zuko frowned at the page he had open, then flipped to another bookmarked page. “Yangchen mentions it a lot. It’s a sort of flour that you mix in tea, I guess. She has a whole entry reminiscing the mess everyone made when they first tried it. And in some other entries she talks about her and Akari using their firebending to help roast it, but doesn’t really say what it is.”

Now, understand, Ru was not an upstart like Amphon or Jingyi. She did not understand why they would bring undue attention to themselves by treating a prince, banished or not, like a regular person. Sure, Prince Zuko had infamously dressed Commandar Haoran down for letting Head Steward Shui harass Jingyi, but that didn’t mean eyes were off her! All Ru wanted to do was cook in peace and not draw attention to herself. 

But with Prince Zuko here every day in plain clothes, talking about recipes, and Chef Xue treating him like an endearing grandchild… It was really easy to forget this was a prince in the kitchen.

“It sounds like zamba,” Ru interjected. The others stared at her like she lost her mind. Both Prince Zuko and Chef Xue turned to her. If anything, Chef Xue pausing her work to focus on Ru was more intimidating than the prince’s attention. 

“What’s that? Do you know how to make it? What’s the origin of the dish?” Prince Zuko asked in rapid fire. He was at the edge of the chair, ready to jump up and get in Ru’s space. It was likely only the cramped size of the kitchen and his respect for Chef Xue that kept him seated. 

“It’s roasted barley flour that you can mix in tea, but you can make porridge or congee with it too.” Ru ducked her head and focused on the carrots she was supposed to be chopping. “Uh- I come from a small island south of the archipelago. Barley's our only resource, outside of fishing, really. So we’ve always made zamba?”

Prince Zuko’s stare was much too intense for a discussion about a simple recipe. It burned into the side of Ru’s head the longer she refused to look up. “How far south?”

That was the crux of it, wasn’t it? How did Ru politely tell a prince, ‘far enough south that you probably consider the colonies more Fire Nation than us.’ Well, maybe that wouldn’t be a problem for Prince Zuko. Jingyi did regularly reference his friendship with two colony-born soldiers from his previous crew… 

Ru looked up, ready to accept the consequences of drawing attention to herself. Words escaped her as she met Prince Zuko’s hopeful gaze. Not scrutinizing or judgemental. For some reason he was staring at her as if her answer could be a good thing.

Dazed, Ru answered truthfully. “Quite far south. Probably closer to the Southern Islands than the archipelago.”

The prince’s smile lit up his whole face. He practically shined in his excitement. “So can you make it?”

Ru’s hesitant confirmation brought Chef Xue into the conversation again. By the time Prince Zuko left the kitchen, they had plans of what they needed to do to make zamba. No matter how much Ru tried to insist that her island’s dish and Avatar Yangchen’s tsampa were not the same, Prince Zuko ignored her. It left Ru unsettled, but surely it was only the disbelief at herself for getting involved with the prince. No matter the similarities, zamba couldn’t be an airbender recipe.

Right?

Despite being present for all of Prince Zuko’s discussions and preparations with Chef Xue, Ru was still surprised when Commander Haoran reluctantly announced the coming day off to accompany Prince Zuko on a picnic .

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to!” Prince Zuko clarified, so small and young looking next to the commander. “But everyone is welcome. Chef Xue and everyone in the kitchen have put a lot of work into helping me recreate dishes from Avatar Yangchen’s time to honor her and Lady Tienhai. They’re really tasty! And if you’re interested in learning about the story of Lady Tienhai, I’ll be telling it over the meal. So- uh- the day after tomorrow, please gather mid-morning on the shore and I’ll lead the way to the statue.”

The following day and a half, Prince Zuko became a permanent resident in the kitchen. He was, shockingly, not disruptive in his attempts to help prepare for the picnic. It certainly helped that Chef Xue was more than happy to personally teach him how to do basic tasks. All the while, he jumped between concern they weren’t going to have enough food to afraid there would be too much because no one would want to accompany him to Lady Tienhai’s statue.

How he could possibly think the latter was beyond Ru.

When Prince Zuko asked the crew to help him search the mountains of the Western Air Island, speculation ran rampant amongst the departments. Everyone knew the rumor that spirits had contacted him in the swamp he visited. Not to mention the fact he’d gone to a spirit library. Had he found something in the stronghold related to Avatar Yangchen? Had that prompted the sudden search and subsequent plans to visit more locations related to her? Was he trying to contact her spirit?

Or maybe he was just a young teen with a deep admiration for the stories he found in Yangchen’s memoirs. Maybe the search of the island and proposed tour had nothing to do with his quest for the Avatar, and had everything to do with his desire to learn more about Avatar Yangchen simply because he wanted to. It wasn’t as if finding the missing Avatar was possible, so why not go on a sightseeing trip?

Regardless of his intentions with this picnic and other future plans, there was no denying that the crew was bursting with curiosity. If anyone stayed behind on the ship, Ru would be surprised. As far as what Ru believed? Well, she saw first hand how obsessed Prince Zuko was with Avatar Yangchen and her stories. But… she couldn’t say in full confidence that’s all there was to his behavior. 

Sure enough, the day of the picnic, the ship was empty. Whether out of curiosity, respect, or boredom, the crew of the Sazanami followed Prince Zuko up to a sea-side cliff where a towering, weathered statue overlooked the coast. Whoever Lady Tienhai was, her likeness was ethereal even after years of neglect.

Idle chatter spread through the crew as they grouped together on the blankets Jingyi sequestered without Head Steward Shui’s knowledge. The man, as well as the commander, looked distinctly uncomfortable as they joined General Iroh on their picnic blanket. They looked on aghast as Prince Zuko helped distribute the baskets of food the kitchen had prepared. Meanwhile General Iroh watched the prince with a fond glow. He even personally thanked Ru as she set up the tealight for their group!

Ru sat with her friends and fellow stewards once they were done serving. Of course she did. No matter how much time she’d spent with the prince in the past few weeks leading up to this picnic, he was still a prince and only upstarts openly spent time with him, right? 

The prince’s picnic blanket was surprisingly crowded. Amphon, Chanda, and Lieutenant Kavi were there, as expected. But so were Chef Xue and her drinking buddy Medic Ume. Jingyi didn’t usually spend time with Prince Zuko outside of their not-so-secret lessons, but it seemed she and Ensign Jae had been pulled over by Lieutenant Kavi. 

“Before we eat, I’d like to tell you the story of Lady Tienhai, and why we're here,” Prince Zuko said, his voice projected across the gentle slope. “Or well, this is a story in a story, because this is also the location of Yangchen’s first act as a fully-realized Avatar.”

Brimming with eagerness and an easy confidence, Prince Zuko delved into a story of love and loss. Of a spirit that despised humanity, but loved his friend enough to leave the mortals in peace—and then to curse them upon her death. Of a spirit that loved humanity enough to abandon her friend and power—to become mortal. Of a king whose love and grief almost condemned his people. Of a young Avatar and princess who fought a spirit, consoled a king, and brought peace between them.

“And so, to honor Lady Tienhai’s memory and uphold Yangchen's agreement with General Old Iron, King Anwar and the people of Leceia built this statue and left these lands to nature. Once a year, they would return to renew their vows. But after the king passed, less descendants of Leceia returned. Yangchen and the airbenders also came here annually to celebrate the balance between humanity and the spirit world. Her people came to honor Lady Tienhai’s dedication and sacrifice, rather than the love she shared with King Anwar and his people.”

For the first time since beginning his tale, Prince Zuko faltered. His hands, which had been flying in a whirlwind of signs to keep Chanda included, continued to move even as his words stopped. Chanda signed something back to him, and he smiled at her before addressing the crew again. 

“Yangchen wrote about her life as a way to process the grief of losing Princess Akari and Master Huizhong. When she wrote about this story, she expressed her sorrow that they would be forgotten as King Anwar and the people of Leceia were during her lifetime. I’ve talked a lot about Akari and Huizhong since finding Yangchen’s memoirs.” Prince Zuko reached up to fidget with hair that was not resting on his shoulder. He shrugged with an awkward laugh. “So, I wanted to talk about something else that Yangchen didn’t want forgotten, for once. Thank you for listening! Please enjoy the amazing work of Chef Xue. And Steward Ru! We wouldn’t have been able to figure out tsampa without her help!”

Everyone was staring at Ru. Oh spirits, why did Prince Zuko have to personally thank her? She would have been fine not getting acknowledgement! 

“How’d you know an Air Army recipe?” A steward rarely assigned to the kitchen asked. 

Ru flushed and shook her head. “It’s not! It’s an airbender recipe from Yangchen’s time! That was centuries ago!” 

Prince Zuko had been extremely adamant about that, after all. 

“Besides, Ru didn’t know it. It just happens to be similar to something from her home island. Prince Zuko just keeps calling it the wrong thing,” a fellow kitchen steward spoke up in support. 

“Y-yeah, exactly. But, it can get a bit messy if you don’t know what you’re doing, so let me show you how to mix it…”

The unsettling feeling was back, and wasn’t going away even as Ru brushed aside the accusation. She’d been trying so hard to not think about Prince Zuko’s insistence that Yangchen’s traditional dish was the same as the staple meal of Ru’s island. Her island was south, so far south the Fire Nation sometimes forgot about it through history. But they had survived and thrived on their little island full of barley, at least until recent times. 

When Ru’s grandmother was alive, she would lament about the travelers who used to frequent the island in her youth. Where had those travelers gone, Ru used to ask. But her grandmother never answered, always changed the topic. It was scary to consider, treasonous to consider, but Yangchen’s people sounded like the sort of travelers who would have made her grandmother reminiscent of days past.

Ru couldn’t help but think about the beautiful murals she saw in the Air Stronghold, of the giant kitchens and abandoned gardens. Everyone agreed that there would be remnants of Yangchen’s time even after they became an army… Yes, Yangchen’s people had changed. The airbenders of Zuko’s stories had changed and became the horrible, vicious Air Army. 

Right?

Chapter Text

Dao,

You. Are. The. Worst. 

The last thing you tell us is that you’re going to a dangerous, mysterious swamp. Did you know the military doesn’t formally keep track of your movement? So no one would tell us where you were. The only reason we didn’t continue to assume you to be dead is thanks to those oddballs you call friends. (You may have gotten them in the palace guard, but you won’t believe the duty they got. I’ll give you one guess.)

I’m willing to excuse your behavior, but not forgive you. I won’t forgive you until you prove you won’t pull something like this again. In the meantime, I’m dreadfully bored and writing to you is as good an activity as anything. Even if I’m writing to a tantrum-throwing child. I could use the practice dealing with one.

My mother gave birth not too long ago. I’m officially a big sister. Woohoo. I have a little brother now. His name is Tom-Tom and all he does is eat, poop, sleep, and cry. I hope I never have to deal with another baby again in my life. 

The good news is, I might get my wish despite getting a brother. A few months ago, my mother made me start accompanying her to court semi-regularly. I thought it would be terribly dull, because I figured everyone would be like my mother. Instead, one of the higher noblewomen found my knife work fascinating and surprised me with a vicious sense of humor. She’s someone I could aspire to be, really. 

Since she far outranks my parents, they couldn’t stop me from accepting her offer of mentorship. Not only has she found me instructors to improve my martial skills far beyond what the Academy offers, but she listens to me and cares about what I have to say. I’ve heard rumors that she lost her heirs to the war, and that she’s been searching for someone to inherit her estate. I’m not going to hold out hope. But I won’t lie that I’m tempted to ask her about it…

I’m sure her sister told you, but Tumbles ran away to join the circus. It would be quite the scandal if anyone knew about it. I give it another week or two before the gig is up. You’re to blame for this, by the way. All your rambling about your travels and about Princess Akari’s adventures put it in her mind that she needed to see the world too. I actually got a proper goodbye, unlike her family and Her, but even I don’t know where she ended up. If you stumble upon her, please tell her I miss her. I’m proud of her. that she owes me. I’m pushing to have an audience with Her so she hears the news from me. She’s not going to be happy, but at least she’ll know we weren’t trying to keep Tumbles’ plans a secret.  

Now, as interesting as I found your letter to Tumbles, it’s too long for my taste. So I’m only going to ask you one, important question. 

Are you telling me that you’re the source of that banned song? It’s all the rage at the Academy, and apparently with the common folk. I should have known you were somehow involved, considering the topic of the song. But I thought it was just a coincidence. 

I must stress: it’s banned in the Fire Nation. You better be careful who you tell that you’re the mastermind behind it. What in the world were you thinking coming up with those lyrics?

Tell your friend Chanda that I appreciate her keeping you truthful. 

Don’t throw another tantrum and take a year to reply,

Darts

The winning theory about Prince Zuko’s plans was that he was going on a sight-seeing trip because he was obsessed with Avatar Yangchen the way a kid got obsessed with the Yuyan Archers or the Rough Rhinos. If a kid like that had command of their own ship, of course they’d take advantage of it. Oh, the search of the Air Island had been a good start and gave Prince Zuko’s goal a sense of seriousness to it, but his little picnic and a show did little to dissuade the idea that this was all merely a cover for a childish obsession. 

The food had been delicious and the story had been pretty interesting, not to mention everyone got the day off, so no one was about to complain about a teenager clearly abusing his power. Honestly, the kid deserved a little selfish fun after all he’d been up to the past year and a half, if you asked Ye-jun.

Ye-jun totally understood visiting the stronghold and statue. They were visible, standing monuments connected to Avatar Yangchen, so of course Prince Zuko wanted to visit them. Their next destination, however? From what Ye-jun learned from the rumor mill as they sailed, he could not figure out for the life of him what Prince Zuko expected. 

The Sazanami’s course was set somewhere in the middle of the Mo Ce Sea. Not a small island, literally in the middle of the sea. Granted, there used to be an island. It was where Avatar Yangchen first bent another element and discovered she was the Avatar. But then, apparently, the Avatar following her accidentally sank the island. Accidentally! A whole island! The story didn’t end there, because then the next Avatar—Kyoshi of all Avatars—used the location of the sunken island to contact her predecessor’s spirit. 

While the leading theory was that these were all field trips to satisfy a childish desire, Ye-jun really started doubting it upon learning that last tidbit. He certainly didn’t know Prince Zuko, but he got a pretty good idea of what kind of person he was when he took over Ye-jun’s health check all those months ago. That kid, using the crew’s resources to follow a personal curiosity? Yeah right. 

Ye-jun didn’t care too much to join the rumor mill, but he at least enjoyed speculating on his own. Either Prince Zuko was scrambling to find scraps in his Avatar search and hoped to find something in the same location three previous Avatars were confirmed to have been or he was going to follow in Avatar Kyoshi’s footsteps and try to contact the spirits.

Would that even work for someone who wasn’t the Avatar? How would that even work? Ah, whatever, it wasn’t for Ye-jun to worry about.

Or that was what he foolishly thought until they dropped anchor in the middle of the ocean and Prince Zuko came storming out on deck while Ye-jun worked. 

“It’s fine !” Prince Zuko shouted at General Iroh, who trailed behind him with a pinched expression. Everyone on deck shamelessly stopped what they were doing to watch the argument, Ye-jun included. “I’ve been practicing holding my breath just like how Professor Euna taught me! And I remember everything she said about pressure and what-not while diving. I can at least try to see the island!”

“I have no doubt you remember Professor Euna’s diving lessons fondly, but that was over a year ago!” General Iroh’s voice began to rise by the end of his sentence. He took a deep breath and folded his arms in his sleeves. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, Prince Zuko. Free diving without an experienced diver like the professor to assist you is something I cannot allow.”

Was that what Prince Zuko’s plan was? To try to swim to the bottom of the ocean to catch a glimpse of a sunken island? Holy shit, Takehiko’s wry comments about Prince Zuko’s lack of self-preservation were not him trying to pull a fast one on the deck crew. Ye-jun thought the original members of the crew were exaggerating when recounting Prince Zuko’s past exploits. 

Then again, the kid used a stick with some fabric attached to it to fly, so Ye-jun really shouldn’t be so surprised. 

“Petty Officer Takehiko, if you could lend me some of your department to send the Air Lantern out, I’d appreciate it,” Prince Zuko said, completely disregarding General Iroh as he addressed the department head.

“Pretty Officer Takehiko, I kindly request you ignore any orders from my nephew,” General Iroh immediately followed up with.

Ye-jun’s commanding officer looked between the two royals, then shrugged to the younger. “Yeah, no, don’t care if technically this is your ship. I’m not going to listen to you over the general here. Angry uncle outranks angry prince.”

The shade of red Prince Zuko turned was quite impressive as General Iroh serenely expressed his gratitude. Takehiko ignored the general as he, wisely, took a large step back. 

“Fine then!” Prince Zuko shouted at a painful decibel. Poor General Iroh winced and rubbed at his ears. “I just won’t use the Lantern . That’s even more dangerous, and that’s on you Uncle!”

As he screamed, Prince Zuko started stripping himself of his outer layers. Was he planning on just jumping off the side of the ship?! Well, actually, the height would be a good way to a good depth faster- But that was definitely not something for an inexperienced diver to try! And what was he planning on doing to search for this sunken island? Swim the entire time?

Ever since Prince Zuko took over his health check and was oblivious to light teasing, Ye-jun started to grow a soft spot for the kid. That’s what he would say if anyone questioned his actions. He certainly wasn’t going to admit that he was a bit bored and was excited to have a chance to properly go diving. 

“Uh- sorry to interrupt,” Ye-jun said, stepping between the one-sided shouting match that had started back up. Prince Zuko snapped his mouth shut with an audible clack and stared at Ye-jun with wide eyes. General Iroh looked wary about his interruption, which, fair. “But, if this is a case of Prince Zuko diving alone, I could go with him. I come from a family of pearl divers.”

“Fucking idiot,” Takehiko groaned from behind him. But it was totally said in endearment. Ye-jun’s commanding officer adored him. 

Prince Zuko was ready to burst with smugness as he said to General Iroh. “Well, that was your problem, right? Looks like Seaman Ye-jun is experienced and willing to assist me. So, I’ll be taking the Air Lantern out and we’ll be back by sundown.”

“It would quell some of my concerns, certainly. But you can’t possibly pull Seaman Ye-jun away from his duties for the entire day.” If firebending could be controlled by looks, Ye-jun would be a pile of ash by now. Oh, General Iroh was not happy with him. This was where a sane person would back down, but, honestly Ye-jun was looking forward to diving now that the idea was in his head. And he really was bored.

“Nah, it’s okay. I offered! And I’m sure Petty Officer Takehiko won’t mind.” Ye-jun shot his winning smile over his shoulder. He had on good authority that it made him look adorable and innocent. 

“I’m having no part of this,” Takehiko grumbled, walking away from the whole situation as he shouted an order at the rest of the deck crew.

Triumph had Prince Zuko crossing his arms and smirking at his uncle defiantly. He knew he’d won the second Ye-jun stepped in. 

“Prince Zuko,” General Iroh said, shoulders dropping and defeat in his voice. “Listen to everything Seaman Ye-jun tells you to do, and do return by sundown.”

Since Prince Zuko was inexperienced at free diving, Ye-jun took the lead in their search for Yangchen’s sunken island. For all his impulsive bluster, Prince Zuko could listen to reason. He conceded to letting Ye-jun actually look for the island while Zuko practiced employing the techniques he’d learned over a year ago, as well as the new ones Ye-jun taught him. 

Ye-jun almost forgot how peaceful it was, deep beneath the ocean’s surface. This far from shore, there was nothing to see but the few passing fish and then the vast, open blue of the ocean. Perhaps some people would find it intimidating, or even terrifying, but Ye-jun could easily spend hours surrounded by the gentle crush of the water’s embrace. 

By midday, Ye-jun had yet to find traces of a sunken island, and Prince Zuko was making remarkable progress with his diving. Ye-jun’s mother always said firebenders were natural divers with their breath control, guess he’d have to write to her to let her know she was right. Or maybe this was a Prince Zuko thing… Eh, he’d make his mom’s day. 

The lack of conversation between them since they set out wasn’t much of a concern to Ye-jun. They shared a bit of pleasantries as Prince Zuko sailed them away from the Sazanami , mostly about his sailing expertise, but once they started diving there was little breath to be spared on talking. As they took a break for lunch, it was quite clear that Prince Zuko was struggling with the continued silence. 

Ye-jun was a bit curious what Prince Zuko would choose to talk about if left to stew long enough, so he pretended to not notice the kid’s aborted attempts to draw Ye-jun’s attention or his endless fidgeting. Maybe it wasn’t the nicest thing of Ye-jun to do, but it was amusing. 

“So, your family are pearl divers?” Prince Zuko finally asked, the question bursting out of him in a rush. 

Aw, what a disappointing, mundane topic. Ye-jun didn’t bother pulling his gaze away from the horizon as he shrugged. “Yup, hence me being a diver.”

“Oh, uh, yeah, right.” 

Silence settled over them again. Ye-jun fought to contain a laugh at the prince’s expense. The kid was painfully awkward.

“So, why’d you join the navy?” Again, the words were delivered in a rush as if he had to force them out. 

Now, that had Ye-jun mildly invested in the conversation. Didn’t Prince Zuko know it was quite the faux pas to ask that of someone? Especially when that someone was clearly not from a high station. What in the world had his previous crew been teaching him to miss that?

“Well, same reason most people do these days, I reckon,” Ye-jun said with a shrug. He probably shouldn’t be saying this to a prince, but hey, he did ask. “Decent pay to send home, get fed every day.”

“But- I mean- Well, pearls are pretty popular with nobles. Sorry, I just thought-”

There was no containing Ye-jun’s laugh now. He tried his best to smother it with a bite of rice, but Prince Zuko’s stunned expression meant he didn’t get away with it. With a wry smile, Ye-jun set his food aside. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to laugh at you. You’re right, there’s probably still some divers making good money selling to rich folk and what not, but you’re outta luck if a factory gets built nearby. Only takes a couple of years before the run off wrecks the coast.”

Of all the reactions Prince Zuko could have, disgusted horror was not what Ye-jun expected. 

“What? Really ? That’s horrible!” Shaking his head, Prince Zuko muttered more to himself than to his company, “Kavi mentioned Lu Ten tried to do conservation work too, but I didn’t think more of it. I wonder if I need to fix that too to make-”

He cut himself off as he remembered Ye-jun was there. “Um- But really, I’m sorry to hear that, and sorry I asked. Um- anyways, thank you again for your help today! We have a few more hours before the sun sets, so, let’s finish eating!”

Ye-jun snorted and easily let the topic drop. Sure, he would rather still spend his days diving than working in the navy, but there was no point getting worked up about it. It was what it was. 

A couple of hours later, and with still no sign of a sunken island, Ye-jun realized he still didn’t know why Prince Zuko wanted to find it. So, sprawled out on the deck of the prince’s little sailing boat as he rested and let his body settle before going back down, Ye-jun went ahead and broke the silence this time. 

“What’s there to find, anyways?”

Prince Zuko sat up, a blush filling his cheeks. “Um- Well, this island had significance to three different Avatar. I was thinking, maybe, it’d be possible to tap into that energy. Or something. It’s a long shot… But also, I thought it’d be really cool if I could find it after it’s been underwater for ages .”

The answer had been so obvious. This wasn’t just a fan-fueled adventure nor was it just grasping at straws to find the Avatar. Of course he could multitask and be motivated by both ideas. Ye-jun grinned at the sky. He couldn't find any fault in the kid’s reasoning. 

“Makes sense. Not going to lie, I offered to help you because I thought finding an underwater island would be cool too.”

“Exactly! I don’t get why Uncle couldn’t understand that!” Zuko exclaimed, a smile filling his face as he leaned toward Ye-jun in his excitement. “Did you know this island used to be a dragon nesting site? Princess Akari was friends with dragons and she did a lot of conservation work to help protect them! So when she heard of poachers trying to catch the dragons when they were vulnerable, she and Yangchen tracked them down and fought them off. And in the process, Yangchen bent water for the first time! They figured out together that she was the Avatar, but decided to keep it secret because-”

Ye-jun sat up as Zuko stopped talking. About to inquire what was wrong, Zuko jumped to his feet and raced to the anchor, exclaiming frantically, “We lost track of time! The sun’s setting in less than an hour ! Uncle is going to kill me!”

Right, oops. Ye-jun got up to help Zuko set sail. The general would be annoyed, sure, but eh, everything would be fine. Too bad Zuko was so worked up, Ye-jun was curious about Princess Akari’s dragons…

After parting with the prince once they returned to the Sazanami , Ye-jun figured that would be the end of his personal interactions with Zuko. Sure, he had profusely thanked Ye-jun and expressed how much he enjoyed diving, but General Iroh also made it clear in no uncertain terms that Zuko would not continue searching for the old dragon nesting island.

Okay, yes, Ye-jun’s interest was seriously piqued about Princess Akari and her dragons. He was not about to deny it. Half of the Fire Nation had a dragon phase as kids, right? Definitely. He would like to talk with Zuko more to learn about Princess Akari. But what was he going to do? Approach a prince and ask for a bedtime story? Hah, as if.

“Dragons?!”

Zuko’s voice carried across the mess hall, like always. Despite communicating primarily in sign language, he had the tendency to shout while signing when he got worked up. Maybe the spirits were at play, getting the loudest person Ye-jun knew to befriend a Deaf girl. If Chanda’s amused smirks whenever someone winced at Zuko’s volume were anything to go by, she found the humor in the situation too.

She was grinning like usual as Amphon audibly complained to Zuko and rubbed her ears. It was just the three of them today, as Kavi was sitting with the adultier-adults for dinner. He glanced over to their group, like the rest of the room did at Zuko’s sudden shout, but laughed and turned back to Jae.

Ye-jun should tune back in to the debate his department was having whether Takehiko would defend them or not if they pulled a prank on Head Steward Shui. He was vital to this plotting, since obviously he was Takehiko’s favorite. But, Ye-jun really wanted to know what the prince’s clique was talking about. Was he talking about Princess Akari’s dragons? 

Screw it. Ye-jun just spent the entire day with the kid. He was allowed to invite himself over to their table. Someone called after him as he stood, but Ye-jun excused himself with a shrug and approached the prince’s table. Well, technically it was part of the engineer’s claimed section of the mess hall, but everyone thought of it as the prince’s table.

Amphon noticed him first. The deck crew was the lowest rung of the enlisted ladder, so they had a pretty good relationship with the stewards. Sure, Ye-jun and Amphon didn’t interact much outside of Ye-jun teasing her about her obvious crush, but she didn’t take it to heart and liked him well enough. So why was she staring at him like she’d rather he didn’t come over? He thought they had a good rapport!

Oh wait, right, the crush teasing. Said crush being part of the little posse. Ye-jun smiled his best smile and mentally promised not to tease her. Not one bit.

“Are you talking about Akari’s dragons?” Ye-jun asked, dropping into the empty seat next to Chanda. She turned toward him with a judgemental stare. Honestly, rude! He was a delight and did not deserve this treatment. At least Prince Zuko wasn’t ready to chase him off. 

“We aren’t, but are you interested in Akari?” The kid shook off his surprise at Ye-jun’s sudden appearance, and lit up with a wide smile. He froze, then exclaimed, “Oh shit, wait, I never finished the story I started while we were out today! I was focused on getting back to the ship and you didn’t say anything, so I figured you didn’t care but-”

Ye-jun smiled easily, waving Zuko’s concern off. “Don’t worry about it. I was just a bit curious. I heard you shouting about dragons and figured- Don’t let me interrupt if you’re talking about something else.”

“Chanda is telling us some dragon stories from her island.” Zuko’s hesitantly hopeful grin was too powerful. “You’re welcome to join us! Apparently they say the dragons lived in the volcanoes! And bent the magma!”

There was no way Ye-jun could leave now. Not only would he be a horrible person to crush Zuko’s crew-bonding dreams or whatever this was, but also, Ye-jun came over to talk about dragons. So what if they weren’t Akari’s? However…

“Bending magma? That doesn’t really sound like dragons . I’m sure Chanda’s island has some nice stories. But that’d be volcanic spirits at play, not dragons.”

Chanda huffed and her hands moved way too fast for Ye-jun to hope to follow, even with him somewhat studying the official Sazanami sign language guide. Apparently Amphon’s daily practice was paying off, because she snorted into her tea as Zuko’s lips pinched together. He signed back to Chanda, who gestured emphatically at Ye-jun, then back to him.

Sighing, Zuko mumbled, “Chanda told me to tell you that you’re not as cute as you think you are when you’re being a dick.”

Ye-jun’s jaw dropped as he twisted on the bench to face Chanda properly. Ah, that’s probably why Zuko and Amphon were across from her. What was the sign again? Hopefully this was right.

“Rude!” Ye-jun signed as he stood. Chanda laughed, but Zuko stared at her in betrayal. He turned his big eelhound-puppy-eyes to Ye-jun. Thankfully, Ye-jun wasn’t planning on going anywhere other than the other side of the table to squish himself between Zuko and Amphon. 

“But sorry, I didn’t intend to dismiss your island’s stories,” Ye-jun said, signing a basic apology with his spoken words. “I would like to join in and hear about these mystical magma bending dragons.”

By the end of the night, Ye-jun’s brain hurt from trying to keep up with the signing that moved faster than Zuko and Amphon’s translations. In a fun sort of way though. Learning sign language was much more enjoyable when there was an interesting topic on hand. Who would have thought there might have been dragons that could bend fire and earth! That was so cool. What if there were dragons capable of bending the other elements as well? His mind raced with the possibilities.

Couldn’t there be an air and fire dragon similar to Zuko’s heatbending? He’d have to raise the theory over tomorrow’s dinner. If anyone asked why he joined the group again, well, Ye-jun totally needed the signing practice.

Chapter Text

Darts,

You met Ju Long and Bun Ma?! Are they stationed at the palace gates or something? How did you know to talk to them? Or how did they know to talk to you? How are they doing? Could you let them know how I’ve been doing? You could just pass on that letter I originally wrote to Tumbles if you want. 

Sorry I should have started with that. Thank you for giving me a chance to make up for a year of silence, even if you’re not forgiving me yet. I know it’s just because you’re bored, especially with Tumbles gone and? What’s going on with Her? Why is it so hard for you to see her? I remember last time we wrote you said she was busy with lessons, but that’s totally different than needing to get an audience with her!

Congratulations on your mentorship. I’m really happy to hear you have someone like that. I think everyone should have someone who understands you and encourages you in what you want. Obviously I want to get back home, but I’ve really lucked out in meeting the people I have on my crews and in my travels. What sorts of things is your mentor teaching you?

I’ve been learning a bunch of different things from my crew. Painting, improving my sword work, mechanics, lock-picking and sleight of hand, medicine, cooking, sign language, and most recently free diving! 

Like I said in my original letter to Tumbles, I’m hoping to connect more with Yangchen and maybe find a connection to the current Avatar in the process. So I wanted to find the island she first waterbent at, which Avatar Kuruk accidentally sank. Uncle did not approve of this. But one of the seamen on my crew comes from a family of pearl divers and offered to help me! We didn’t find the island unfortunately, but I think he’ll be receptive to diving again with me. 

And now, to address the Yangchen song… It’s what ?! Why is it banned? No, wait, even more importantly, how in Koh’s lair did it end up all the way in the Fire Nation? Those musicians were nomads, but still! It wasn’t that good of a song. (But you’ve heard it then, right? Did you like it?)

I relayed your message to Chanda. She laughed and told me to tell you it’s a full time job keeping me truthful. I don’t know why I’m friends with either of you.

I still say I never threw a tantrum,

Dao

Order was necessary for the world to function. Algae grew in caves. Cavehoppers ate the algae. Toucan puffins ate the cavehoppers. Eagle gulls ate the toucan puffins. The hierarchy of a biome’s food chain was clear cut. Humanity had its own hierarchies, but they were not as simple. 

There were leaders and followers, those with power and those without. While a toucan puffin and a cavehopper’s roles were fixed as predator and prey, human power was not a fixed state. Throughout history it changed hands, strengthened or weakened. But there were still rules . A poor man did not control wealth. A fishmonger did not become a king. Even if unseated from his rule, a king did not become common . 

In the military, there was an illusion of upward mobility for anyone who worked hard enough. If one enlisted as a seaman, then one day they could see themself seated at the generals’ council. It was impossible, of course. The highest rank a common born seaman could hope to achieve was lieutenant or—in the cases of extraordinary feats—commander.

Head Steward Shui of the Sazanami understood the importance of knowing one’s place. While the rare common born seaman may achieve great heights, encouraging such social climbing was a recipe for disaster. All Shui had to do was look to his family to keep him far from temptation. Great Grandmother Bai believed she could be the exception to the rule. When she was young and naive, she thought her life could work like a story where the common girl would be elevated to a new life because she fell in love with a court noble. Instead, all she got was banished when the noble’s parents caught wind of their romance.

Flights of fancy were clearly genetic, because Uncle Wei did not learn from Great Grandmother Bai’s mistakes. He thought he could elevate the family by climbing the ranks of the military. All that got him was killed. How else could it have ended for the grandson of a banished maid? 

No great tales were going to be told about Shui. He would not find himself the centerpiece of a fairy tale-esque story of success. Shui knew his place and knew better than to begrudge it or dream for another life. Just as the algae grew along cave walls to support the chain of life all the way up to the eagle gulls, so too did Shui support those above him.

Since becoming a head steward, Shui found himself working tirelessly to support those below him as well. In past assignments, his cautionary tales and strict rules were accepted without question. The naive youths under his care were quick to understand Shui was only looking out for them. 

He wasn’t unreasonable, of course. He allowed his stewards to have interdepartmental relations with the deck department and engineers. Few seamen assigned to the deck rose higher in the ranks, even less so of those enlisted amongst the stewards or engineers. There was little chance of those enlisted members rising above civilians enough to make lasting friendships improper. 

The youths of the Sazanami were not open to Shui’s cautionary tales or strict rules. 

Despite Commander Haoran’s best efforts, the state of the Sazanami was dismal. The deck department had no respect for their commanding officer. They could be heard speaking about Petty Officer Takehiko as if he were an older sibling they could wheedle and cajole. Shui’s own stewards regularly disrespected him by outright ignoring his orders and doing things however they pleased behind his back. The operations department mingled freely with lower ranks and openly discussed their work. The engineers, at least, largely kept to themselves apart from the girl whom Prince Zuko imprinted on. 

But Shui shied from criticizing the prince too harshly, even in the privacy of his own thoughts. If a prince decided he wanted to throw caution to the wind, Shui had no standing to stop him. Which made the weapons department and the man in charge of it the source of all of Shui’s woes. 

Lieutenant Kavi was much too reminiscent of Great Grandmother Bai. He barely survived his affair with Prince Lu Ten, and clearly did not learn his lesson. No, the man not only had the gall to be overly familiar with another prince, but he made quick work of befriending the entire crew. A weapons head should not be sharing casual dinners with their men or stewards ! They were supposed to be respected and marginally feared by a crew as the one in charge of keeping soldiers well-trained. Yet, no tears were to be seen during Lieutenant Kavi’s training sessions. Sometimes there was even laughter !

Never had Shui been more stressed than these months since joining Prince Zuko’s crew. He felt like a madman, when in reality he was one of the last sensible ones left. Shui feared the day the Sazanami was thrust into an emergency, or Agni forbid, combat . Only after tragedy struck would Lieutenant Kavi and his ilk realize the dangers of tearing through the structures that held the world together. Once that day came, the Sazanami would become another cautionary tale for Shui to impart. If only Prince Iroh was still the famed general, rather than the doting uncle he clearly was today. The real General Iroh would have never allowed this destruction of order.

The only solace Shui could find were on their sparse shore leave days, where he sought out comfort in the arms of music.

So the moment the Sazanami made port, not long after the Sazanami had further descended to degeneracy as yet another young soul believed befriending a prince was proper, Shui escaped to the nearest high-end teahouse in search of musical performances. There was no hope for the crew of the Sazanami . All Shui could do was pray he left this detail with his sanity intact. 

“His composition is quite inspired,” Shui acquiesced with a nod to the delightful, young erhu performer he had the fortune to converse with this evening. “However, the lyrics far too often rely on cliches.”

The caliber of teahouse which hosted live performances was such that Shui felt financially irresponsible to patronize more than once or twice a year. But that was before, when he wasn’t surrounded by anarchy at every turn. Now, Shui emptied his wallet for a table, and in hopes of engaging in civil conversation with fellow patrons or performers. 

Today he had been lucky enough to entice the erhu performer with a fresh pot of tea after his set. They quickly fell into an invigorating conversation, which continued to the street as the teahouse closed. If only the youth of the Sazanami had a shred of respect and intelligence like this young man. 

“Mister Shui, I take offense to that!” The musician said with a laugh. “There’s nothing wrong with the occasional cliche, especially when it makes the meaning more accessible to-”

He paused mid-sentence as the sound of music carried out of a sidestreet. To Shui it sounded like street performers and a crowd singing along, but the musician lit up as if his favorite composer could be found at the end of the street. 

“Oh, Mister Shui, I’m terribly sorry to cut our conversation short, but I’ve been hoping to find these kids for weeks! You must come too, since you hold lyrical quality to such a high regard!”

The man took off with a giddy laugh, the first true sign of his youth since he joined Shui. While street performances rarely satisfied Shui’s musical taste, he could admit his curiosity was piqued. So he followed at a sedate pace, slowly deciphering the lyrics garbled through an untrained crowd.

“Spinning faster, faster, faster! Burning brighter, brighter, brighter! A lantern shining with their love!”

It was indeed two children seated on abandoned boxes, one playing a pipa slightly too big for her and the other enthusiastically banging on a drum. The performance quieted as the teahouse musician approached, holding up his erhu with a wide smile. His inquiry to learn and play the song alongside the children was met by joyous cheers. In seconds, the man was seated on a box next to the kids, as if he had not been seated on a plush stool in a distinguished establishment mere hours prior.

Shui watched, frozen in his awed confusion. These street urchins were well below the regard of an established musician. And yet. The man deferred to them with the respect a student had for their instructors. He followed their lead, accompanied them with his erhu, but never overpowered them.

The song at its core was simple, obviously so for two untrained children to perform it. But there was a promise of complexity. Shui could hear the endless arrangement possibilities in the hands of experienced musicians. Already with the erhu’s addition, the depth of the song had changed.

Then the lyrics began to sink into Shui’s understanding.

This was- How was this possible?

Without a doubt, this was a song about Avatar Yangchen— Prince Zuko’s Avatar Yangchen. The children and the crowd sang of bonds between nations, of harmony and love between the elements.  And carrying through the narrative was a joining of fire and air in reference to the lantern Prince Zuko’s sailing boat was named after.

As the performance came to an end, Shui was already slipping through the crowd to return to the Sazanami for the night. Spinning, his mind was spinning with the song. As he retired, all he could hear were the deceptively plebeian lyrics that challenged him to his very core.

Prince Zuko’s increasingly frequent ‘story nights’ since his absurd picnic had Shui aware of the major characters of Yangchen’s story. He knew in a distant, detached sense that the Air Avatar was not what passing mentions in Fire Nation education made her out to be. History became distorted through time, it was nothing to lose sleep over.

But this. The hidden complexity of a simple, catchy song had Shui staring at his ceiling, unable to quiet his thoughts for nights on end. Four nations, four cultures, four elements held in equal regard. Of course, such was the way of the world, supplied common sense. But his education made his stomach twist and writhe at the thought. The nations weren’t equal. The Fire Nation was superior and would bring prosperity across all the lands under their rule.

Princess Akari’s flames in the song only grew stronger alongside Avatar Yangchen’s winds. Spinning, burning, shining, the union of fire and air was intertwined in every note, every word. What did it mean for the world, now that the four elements were brought down to three?

Shui’s mind played the song in circles. A tumultuous riot of emotions filled his chest. Never before had a piece of music rendered him so. No professional musician had ever torn him asunder as those untrained children had. It was in music Shui found his solace from the world, but what happened when music challenged his understanding of it?

“Shut up, he does not!”

“I swear on my grandmother’s spirit, he absolutely does! And he’s brilliant at it!”

“How does the chorus go again?”

“Spinning, faster, faster, faster. Shining, brighter-“

“No, it’s burning brighter!”

“Ye-jun, I’m going to shove that flute down your throat if you don’t stop right this-“

The cacophony of the mess hall was loud enough, Shui heard it from his office. He’d been ready to shut everything down when he stopped short in the doorway. Usually, it was Prince Zuko’s presence that had him holding his tongue. If things were rowdy because of the prince, well, it wasn’t Shui’s place to interject. But the prince was nowhere in sight. Instead, there was a wide array of instruments strewn about.

Steward Jingyi jumped on top of a table and whistled to get everyone's attention. Almost the entire crew was present, pulled from all the departments.

“Listen, if we want to trick Prince Zuko into playing the tsungi horn for us, we gotta play it smart. Last time, Bun Ma had to annoy him into playing it out of spite. I don’t know if that tactic will work again but-“

Lieutenant Kavi raised a hand in the air, and all attention immediately snapped to him. He shook his head with a wry smile and spoke in an even voice that easily projected across the room.

“As much as I also would love to get Zuko to perform for us, I can’t condone trying to trick him. If he genuinely doesn’t want to play, we shouldn’t force it.” A few groaned in dismay, but no one objected to Lieutenant Kavi’s words. It wasn’t an order, but it was clear that not a soul would dare try to trick the prince now. The atmosphere immediately changed with a simple grin from Lieutenant Kavi. “But I’m not saying we should cancel music night. I’m just saying, our best bet is to learn the Yangchen song well enough that he’ll want to play it too.”

Cheers erupted and Steward Jingyi had to whistle again to speak. She began assigning instruments to those gathered, and from her perch standing on a table like a boorish hooligan, she spotted Shui standing in the doorway.

They held eye contact as an argument broke out over who got to claim a gong. No one except Steward Jingyi knew he was there. So Shui gave her a small nod, and turned his back to the chaos in the mess hall.

The Sazanami crew’s relations with Prince Zuko destroyed all sense of propriety and hierarchy as Shui knew it. But a song had recently destroyed Shui’s very understanding of order. He had been taught that Fire was superior, above all else. But no element was greater than the others. All were necessary for the world to function. Could the same not be said of the nations? 

That was not a proper thought. That was a treasonous thought. 

But Shui did not know what was proper anymore. For all of the noise in the mess hall, it had not been complete anarchy. Lieutenant Kavi was respected as an authority. Steward Jingyi was trusted to organize. It did not fit in the military’s code of conduct, but neither did it go against Shui’s desire for structure.

Until Shui deciphered the confusing thoughts that song instilled in him, he would wait and observe how Prince Zuko’s idea of ‘community’ worked.

And if that happened to involve some music gracing the deck of the Sazanami, well, Shui would enjoy saving his money.

Chapter Text

Dao,

I said you had one guess for where your oddballs are working and you didn't even try. For that I'll let you continue to be curious, though I will be nice and give you one clue. We met and realized who each other were due to the specific location they're stationed. I'll be honest, at first I could not understand why you'd call them your friends. One is more timid than a rabbit mouse and the other makes cat sloths seem productive. 

But then I remembered when you found an injured rabbit mouse. After you nursed it back to health, you wanted to keep it as a pet. I believe you cried for several days and sulked even longer when you couldn't. I also remembered when you snuck into the royal menagerie, stole a cat sloth, and tried to teach it tricks after She called them boring and useless. You just love adopting strange creatures. 

Though I'm not part of your zoo, and am certainly not a messenger hawk, I was kind enough to relay your message to your friends and give them your ridiculously long letter. They also agree with Chanda that you threw a tantrum, so that's four against one. You surely must admit defeat. It's just a sad delusion at this point if you insist on arguing. 

I refuse to play messenger hawk further, but as I do understand the difficult position you're in regarding contacting them, I will at least say they're doing well and they wish you the best. They (gag) miss you. I'll never write such sentimentalities ever again. You're welcome. 

You're becoming a good little tradesman, aren't you? Who cares about the Avatar, you could spend the rest of your life living off all these miscellaneous skills you're learning. Or just steal for a living. Why and how are you learning lockpicking and sleight of hand? Send an instruction manual for me. 

Such a life sounds more enjoyable than that of a royal, particularly the life She is currently living. I have to request an audience with her because not a moment of her time goes unscheduled. You thought it was bad when we could only see her at school, and both of you whenever Master Piandao created time for us? It's even worse now. 

I managed to see her before Tumbles’ scandal broke. She was furious not to have been in the loop, but ultimately understood why she found out only after the fact. Notice how I wrote that I saw her, not that I got an audience. That’s because I am still on a waiting list to get approved. Her new guards, however, do not care much for rules and helped sneak some time for her. 

Oh, I almost forgot. Speaking of Master Piandao, I just found out my mentor is his wife. Perhaps you know of her? Lady Xiulan admitted that she first took an interest in me because I was your and Azula’s friend, but offered her mentorship purely because of my own merits. I didn’t realize that she was close with your cousin, Lu Ten, but it makes sense, seeing as he was the one who got you under Master Piandao’s tutelage. My time with her continues to be illuminating. Perhaps I am more suited for court life than I realized, if it’s her style rather than my mother’s.

My hand is growing tired from writing. If you can’t figure out for yourself why the Yangchen song is banned, then you’re a bigger idiot than I fear. (Yes, I’ve heard it. It’s not horrible.)

Elaborate on your time in the North Pole in your next letter. You were withholding something in your letter to Tumbles. I suspect something about this historian friend you wrote about is more than she appears. Is she perhaps another criminal you’ve befriended? 

You’re throwing a tantrum about not throwing a tantrum,

Darts

Women were not unheard of in engineering, but they were uncommon enough that a fair number of ships' engine departments were composed entirely of men. Stuck in the engine rooms, many of these men went through their military career never building bonds beyond their fellow male engineers. It could create an uncomfortable environment for female engineers, especially when they were the only woman. 

More often than he’d like in his career, Panit had to intervene with a coworker’s poor conduct. Since becoming a head engineer, Panit always made sure his crew understood that no amount of inexperience working with women was an excuse for misbehavior. Granted, every female engineer Panit had ever met was more than capable of putting an idiot in his place, but that didn’t mean they had to do it alone. 

When Panit received his new assignment and the paperwork of the crew he’d be in charge of, he had a moment of worry. The older, experienced engineers he’d either worked with before or was familiar with through the Engineers Guild. But there was a group of youngsters unknown to him. The sole woman of his new team was one of said youths, and also was deaf.

It could have been a recipe for disaster, but Panit lucked out with his young Sazanami engineers. The firebender was a shy but polite man, the other two boys became joined at the hip in an instant, and Chanda had enough backbone to put all of them—old and young—in their place if anyone had been the unsightly sort. 

Panit couldn’t help but keep worrying, just a little. He knew Chanda’s previous crew had not been welcoming nor accommodating to her disability. The last thing he wanted was for her to be left in solitude yet again, and the whole engineering team shared a similar sentiment. But learning sign language was a slow process for all of them. 

Raju rarely spoke as it was, so he had little practice signing beyond necessary work conversations. Yan and Souta were nice kids who were trying their best to learn sign language to include Chanda, but they were often in their own little world and forgot to let anyone else in on their conversations. As for Panit and the rest of the experienced engineers, well, they were doing their best to learn, but they were also grizzled, older men. None of them wanted to make Chanda feel uncomfortable. Panit, in particular, was cautious as her superior. He didn’t want to single her out for casual conversations that he never initiated with the other youngsters. 

So when Prince Zuko started practicing sign language and not only excelled in it, but also befriended Chanda, the engine department sighed in relief. They didn’t stop trying to improve their signing, of course, but they no longer felt guilty for their ineptitude. But then Lieutenant Kavi and Amphon started making appearances and seemed to easily pick up sign language. Panit suspected the young men felt discouraged with their own lack of progress in comparison, and thus stopped trying as hard. Chanda had friends now, why would she want to waste her time with them? 

Recently, one of the kids from the deck crew became a new addition to Chanda’s crowd and managed to pull Raju of all people into a conversation. He fared well with his minimal signing, and he was smiling for the rest of the day. On a rare day when Chanda was not surrounded by her friends, Raju cautiously asked her a question and they were talking together for the rest of the meal. That obviously got to Yan and Souta, for Panit noticed them furiously practicing their sign language together the next day. He had a feeling they were starting to feel left out in their bubble of two. It warmed Panit’s heart to see the kids growing closer with each other.

“-never been a tradition in the Fire Nation, but Princess Akari had been having those spirit dreams I talked about the other day, right? Of an ancient civilization that might have been a society of fire and airbenders! And in her dreams, she saw mastery tattoos like how the airbenders did! Well, different design, but the same idea,” Prince Zuko said, mostly in signs. He provided the occasional spoken word for his rapt audience, but everyone’s sign language had grown in leaps and bounds once they started using it in the past few weeks. “So, Akari decided she wanted mastery tattoos like Yangchen. Yangchen described them as spirals of flames on her palms and over her heart.” 

“Why not over her stomach?” Raju asked, hands hesitant, but his signs clear. He blushed under Prince Zuko’s full attention, even if it was a giddy smile that turned his way.

“Exactly! It’s weird if you know anything about firebending and chakras.” Prince Zuko clarified to the others, “Because firebending comes from the stomach! But the air chakra is over your heart!”

Ye-jun smacked his fist in his palm and exclaimed, “Ah-ha! That’s further evidence her dreams were of fire and air people.” 

Halfway through his sentence, he scrambled to also sign. Chanda snorted and easily corrected the mistakes he made in his haste, then chided him to slow down. 

“Would you get tattoos like Akari’s when you get your firebending mastery?” Yan and Souta asked the prince, filling in for the other when their signs faltered. 

“Oh, well, I-” Prince Zuko flushed a vibrant shade of red and shrugged his shoulders up to his ears. “I’m not a very good firebender. I doubt I’ll become a master at this rate. And even if I did , Yangchen made it sound like getting tattoos was really painful. It’d be super cool, but…”

“That’s because they were so big,” Chanda said. “Akari’s probably hurt like a bitch because of the location, but mine didn’t hurt much at all.”

The entire table fell silent, hands still and eyes wide. In a flurry of movement and verbal exclamations, everyone bombarded Chanda with questions about her tattoo. What was it of? How long ago did she get it? Why hadn’t she said anything? She teased everyone for never asking, but eventually adjusted her clothes to show off the stylized volcano intertwined with machinery on her shoulder blade.

“If you want anything elaborate, we’d need to be in port for longer than a quick stop. Or you’d have to be okay risking multiple tattoo artists working on the same piece,” Chanda explained to inquiries of acquiring their own tattoos. 

Ye-jun batted his lashes at the prince. “You can make that happen, Mr. Commanding Officer. Let’s all get tattoos!”

“Are you kidding me? Then I’d have to tell Uncle! There’s no way he’d approve.”

Amphon giggled and bumped the prince’s shoulder with her own. “So you do want one? What would you get?”

“It doesn’t matter! It’s not going to happen anyways!”

Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to endorse something General Iroh wouldn’t approve of, but Panit felt indebted to Prince Zuko for bringing his engineers together. If he truly wanted a tattoo, it was the least Panit could do. So he leaned over to knock on the kids’ table and draw their attention. 

“I can tattoo. Done a lot on my previous ships. Think a couple of the other engineers have my work if you want to see an example,” he signed. “Can’t design, but I’m sure you artists wouldn’t have a problem doing that part.”

The kids stared at him in pure shock. Was it that surprising? Navy soldiers had to get their tattoos from someone when they were stuck at sea for months on end. 

“Since when did he learn to sign?” Prince Zuko signed to the group. 

Panit’s offer went forgotten as they freely admonished the prince in their midst. Chanda went so far as to kick him under the table, while Amphon gently shook him by the shoulders. Meanwhile, the engineers, even the rest of his men who had not been part of the conversation, came to Panit’s defense. 

“Don’t be so rude!” 

“Obviously he knows, so you can’t just talk about him in front of him like that!”

“Head Engineer Panit has been studying hard, you know!”

The only one not distracted by Prince Zuko’s tactlessness, Ye-jun jumped out of his seat to join Panit with a wide grin. “Are you serious? You know, I’ve been wanting to get a tattoo since I enlisted, like a real navy soldier, but my mother would throttle me if I went to just any random sketchy place in a port!”

The chaos of the other table died down as all eyes turned to Panit for his answer. Panit grinned and shook his head as he huffed out a laugh. He’d never been on a crew like Sazanami , and likely never would again.

“Yes, I can tattoo you. But I’ll need supplies when we next make port-”

Something was going on with Zuko and Amphon. Ever since they went on their field trip in the airbender ruins and Zuko suddenly returned tasking the crew to go on a scavenger hunt with him, they were acting differently. When it had been just the three of them at meal times, with the occasional addition of Kavi, it really had been too small for Chanda to notice beyond feeling like she was missing something. Once Ye-jun started regularly popping over, and then he pulled the other young engineers into their conversations, it happened enough for Chanda to catch it. 

Zuko would say something, and Amphon would give him a knowing look. Amphon would ask a question about Yangchen or her companions, and Zuko’s usual grin when asked about them had a tint of mischief. When Ye-jun asked about the possibility of air and fire creatures like the earth and fire dragons of Chanda’s hometown myths, Zuko and Amphon’s shared look of surprised elation was too obvious to disregard. And then Zuko jumped into theorizing about Akari’s spirit dreams and ancient ancestors, which he’d only ever alluded to before with Chanda.

It was silly of Chanda to feel left out. Her friendship with Zuko was different from her friendship with Amphon. There were some things she shared with one, but not the other. It was only natural for it to be the same on their end. Chanda was just being insecure because they were her first proper friends in years. 

Honestly, she had no reason to be acting so childish. So what if Amphon and Zuko had a secret and didn’t want to tell her about it? They obviously still cared about her as their friend, and it was thanks to them that Chanda’s list of friends only continued to grow. She shouldn't obsess over feeling left out when she’d never been more included. 

But then the tattoos happened! How did no one else find that weird?!

Chanda knew Zuko was going to end up with a tattoo the second Head Engineer Panit made his offer. There was no way the Avatar Yangchen super fan was going to pass up the chance to get a tattoo in her and Princess Akari’s honor. When he started sketching out ideas, of course he asked for Amphon’s input. She was an artist, afterall. But then Kavi got roped into designing the wing motif. And then next thing Chanda knew, all three of them were planning on getting the same thing. 

If the pair of dragon wings in flight really was an homage to Akari’s animal companions and Yangchen’s element, then why would Amphon and Kavi want to get it as a tattoo as well?

They enjoyed Zuko’s stories as much as Chanda did, which meant not to the level of getting a tattoo based on them. 

One evening when Zuko hadn’t joined them for dinner, Chanda tried questioning them so everyone else would see how weird it was. That didn’t go as she’d hoped.

“Oh, but I love Yangchen and Akari’s love story!” Amphon said with pink dusting her cheeks. “It’s extremely romantic. And I helped Zuko come up with the design! I like it too!”

Everyone accepted her explanation with a laugh.

“It’s something nice to share with Zuko,” Kavi said with a soft smile. He glanced around conspiratorially, then added with a much sharper grin, “Plus, Lu Ten and I always threw around tattoo ideas but never got around to it. Partially because he was worried Iroh wouldn’t approve, like Zuko. So how can I not go for it now?”

That also got him some laughter, as well as some sympathetic looks. 

No one else found it weird. Chanda was ready to write herself off as paranoid, but Kavi’s answer made her realize how differently he’d been acting since the Western Air Island. Or maybe even before then. There’d always been a spark of teasing playfulness in him, but it rarely came out. These days, Kavi was still as kind as ever, but it came with a playful bite more often than not. And he was much more open about his friendship with Ensign Jae…

Somehow it was all connected. It had to be! But, if Zuko didn’t want her to know what was going on… Well, Chanda was mature enough to accept that. Just because he was her first friend in the military it didn’t mean she had special privileges. They were friends, and sometimes friends didn’t know everything going on in the other’s life. She needed to suck up her pathetic insecurities and be happy that she had friends to be worried about to begin with. Chanda kept telling herself that and tried to ignore the distance she felt growing between her and Zuko. 

When the Sazanami made port for the first time in weeks, Chanda expected Zuko to run off with Amphon and Kavi. Instead, he joined Chanda for breakfast, alone, and fidgeted with his chopsticks. He set them down resolutely once he finished eating. 

“Would you like to go into town with me today?” He asked, so earnest and determined, as if Chanda would say no. 

Chanda snorted, remembering the last time he got worked up asking her the same question. “Are you going to ask me to go as friends again?”

His embarrassed blush was instantaneous as he jumbled through his signs in protest and defense of his previous idiocy. Once he got his hands under control, he huffed and signed, “Today’s my birthday, if you must know. And I don’t want to make a big production out of it.”

Oh dear, if that was how he felt, he was not going to be happy that the crew had a surprise party and music night planned for him this evening. Chanda could tell him, but she was feeling childish and petty.

“You don’t want to ask Amphon or Kavi to go with you?” 

She regretted the words as soon as she signed them, but especially so as Zuko’s nose scrunched in genuine confusion and hurt flash through his eyes. 

“I wanted to ask you, but if you’re busy today…”

Chanda felt like a complete ass. Here Zuko was, asking her to hang out, trusting her to respect his wishes for a casual day together, and she was hung up on his secret club. 

“No, no, I’m not busy!” Chanda winced. Honestly, she was too old to be acting like this. She needed to come clean. “I’m sorry. I think I’ve, well, our little group has grown a lot recently. Sometimes I miss spending time together, just the two of us.”

Zuko stared at her with wide eyes for a moment, then ducked his head with a shy smile. “Yeah, me too. So wanna go around town with me?”

“I’d love to.”

The only thing jeopardizing Chanda’s friendship with Zuko was her own insecurities. No matter his secrets, Zuko obviously still cared about her and valued their friendship. Maybe one day he’d feel confident enough to share the true meaning of his tattoo design or the entirety of Yangchen and the airbenders’ story. Until then, Chanda could wait.

And if she happened to keep her own secrets about the surprise party waiting for Zuko that evening, well she wasn’t perfect.

“Ensign Jae, is there something about my nephew that I should be aware of?”

It was either testament to Zhao’s idiocy or how comfortable Jae was in Iroh’s presence, but she was horrid at keeping her thoughts off her face. Her reaction to Iroh’s question was to freeze and pinch her lips, then to plaster on a very obvious fake smile. How she managed to land herself on the Sazanami as Zhao’s spy was truly beyond Iroh.  

“No? Why would you think that?” She asked cheerily. At least she was adept at regulating her tone. Perhaps that’s how she got away with her expressiveness around Zhao; he rarely deigned to look her way. 

“Indeed, indeed, I may just be feeling a bit lonely now that he’s outgrown my company.”

Jae laughed and reassured him that he would at least always have their weekly gossip night. What an innocent way to describe their scheming against Haoran and Zhao. Truly, how did this woman land herself this position? They carried on their night, discussing what Jae would write to Zhao in her next letter, and Iroh’s concerns about Zuko did not come up again.

But that didn’t mean Iroh believed nothing was amiss. Oh no. Iroh wasn’t sure whose grand idea it was to keep him in the dark, but they obviously had enough sway over Jae to get her in on it too.

Though Zuko opened himself up to making new bonds on the Sazanami after his time in the North Pole, he hadn’t gone out of his way to interact with anyone beyond the young women he befriended and Lieutenant Kavi. That drastically changed after Zuko’s return to the Western Air Temple. 

It began with Zuko’s confession as they sailed away from the temple a second time.

“I know Yangchen isn’t the Avatar I need to find, Uncle, but her memoirs are the only substantial information I’ve found. It led me to the Swamp, and then to the North Pole and Princess Yue. Sure, I learned about Avatar Kuruk too, but still more about Yangchen! So, I know it’s a shot in the dark, but maybe if I keep trying to learn more about her I’ll find my way to the missing Avatar!”

Of course Iroh supported Zuko in this endeavor. Nothing would lead him closer to discovering the truth of the war. Surely he’d be the most receptive to harsh realities if learned through his Avatar Yangchen research. And if Zuko wasn’t ready to see through the Fire Nation’s lies yet, there had to be seeds of doubt sown through the crew after they saw the Air Temple or from Zuko’s picnic. If Zuko didn’t find the truth on his own, then his friends would surely lead him toward it.

Which was why, even after Seaman Ye-jun revealed himself as possessing Zuko levels of recklessness, Iroh didn’t have the heart to be too cross with the young man. Yes, he made it impossible for Iroh to stop Zuko from free-diving. Yes, he hadn’t been responsible enough to get them back to the ship by Iroh’s deadline. But he at least gave Iroh the peace of mind that Zuko wouldn’t try free-diving by himself and he was surprisingly insightful. According to Jae’s reports, the youth of the crew had gotten deep into historical and philosophical debates thanks to Ye-jun’s questions.

Iroh would never begrudge Zuko making more friends, nor exploring his beliefs with them. He would say he greatly appreciated the young men and women who called Zuko a friend. What Iroh did not appreciate was how in the weeks since the Sazanami made port to celebrate Zuko’s birthday, his group of friends started flaunting new tattoos. And suspiciously around the same time, Zuko adamantly remained fully clothed while sparring and firebending. 

He had the perfect excuse, of course. It was the dead of winter, so none would find it odd that Zuko wasn’t stripping his shirt off at the first sign of sweat. But they were sailing near enough to Fire Nation waters that it wasn’t exactly cold . Iroh knew his dear nephew ran hot, especially while firebending. There was one, obvious reason for Zuko to push through his training while uncomfortable. 

It would be a lie to say Iroh was pleased with the situation. Not only had Zuko gotten a tattoo without Iroh’s knowledge, but it seemed the entire crew had enabled him and were helping him keep it a secret! Iroh would love to lecture someone, but he was loath to drive a wedge between Zuko and the crew. He'd come a long way from the furious boy who swore to ignore any newcomers to the Sazanami after Zhao took away his first friends.

Spirits help Iroh. His nephew was fifteen, had a tattoo , and Iroh was going to let him get away with it. Lu Ten never gave Iroh this much stress.

A warm, windless day soon arrived. Iroh called out corrections as Zuko practiced a particularly tricky firebending set. Even before his banishment, he’d barely completed it enough to progress further. Sweat pooled on the back of Zuko’s shirt. He paused after each kata to wipe his face. Iroh didn’t want to pressure Zuko, but he was starting to get worried his nephew would let himself overheat before exposing his secret. 

Suddenly, with an annoyed growl, Zuko ripped his shirt off. He furiously mopped the sweat off his face before tossing it to the side and resuming his practice. There was no attempt to keep his back from facing Iroh. He made no acknowledgement at all of the small tattoo sitting between his shoulder blades that had not been there a few weeks ago. 

Iroh smiled into his tea and called out another correction. Of course his impulsive nephew would forget he was keeping his tattoo secret. It was small enough that Iroh took a while to make out the design. Dragon wings unfurled for flight. Well, Iroh couldn’t say he was surprised. Perhaps more than anything he was surprised it wasn’t a direct reference to Avatar Yangchen.

As practice came to an end, Zuko picked up his shirt but made no move to put it back on. He dropped himself across from Iroh at his outdoor tea table and helped himself to the pitcher of water waiting for him. 

“What made you decide on dragon wings?” Iroh asked just as Zuko started to drink.

Water sprayed out across the deck and down Zuko’s front. He shoved his shirt back on, bright red and ready to defend himself, then realized Iroh was desperately fighting off laughter. Zuko deflated with a sigh, “You’re not mad?”

“I would have appreciated you forgoing the deceit, but what’s done is done.” Iroh shook his head. He might still have some choice words for whoever enabled Zuko to keep this a secret, but that wasn’t for Zuko to worry about. “Tattoos have a long history in our nation, after all. I believe you have a story from Yangchen about Princess Akari giving herself tattoos upon mastering firebending?”

“Yes! That’s why I wanted it, they were my inspiration! The dragon wings are Akari, obviously, with all the dragon companions she had, but then the wings are also Yangchen because that’s how dragon’s fly in the air , right?” Zuko’s wide smile was infectious as he happily shared all he’d been keeping secret the past few weeks. “Did you know Chanda’s had a tattoo this whole time? It’s so cool! It’s homage to her home island and her love of engineering! It’s pretty big, too. I wanted mine bigger, but Kavi convinced me to get it this size and-”

Iroh nodded along to Zuko’s tale, thankful that even when his nephew tried to be duplicitous, he was still an open book.

Chapter Text

Darts, 

I know you don’t want to keep being a messenger hawk between us, but could you still share what I write with Bun Ma and Ju Long? I’m sure they’ve told you even more about captain asshole than I wrote and you know how much shit we might get in if he intercepts any letters between us. But you and I have been writing even before he messed everything up, and we have our code, so it’s the safest bet I have of keeping in contact with them. You don’t have to write anything back of what they say but. I just want them to know that I’m keeping my promises and even if I had a small tantrum, I’m not now. I have friends and I’m still pursuing my goals!

Are they assigned to Lady Xiulan’s household? Is that how you met them? I never personally met her but one of Lu Ten’s friend’s is actually on my crew now. He said that she’s the type to hire on some oddballs. Oh but, can you not mention that to her? He told me about her and she sounds like the perfect mentor for you! I’m happy for you, really! But, his situation is a bit complicated and I promised you wouldn’t tell if I wrote about how I know about Lady Xiulan. 

As you probably saw, I’ve included an instruction manual for basic lock picking, courtesy of my own mentor in the field. Hope that entertains you.

And no, she isn’t a criminal, and neither is my friend from the North Pole! I was sparse on my details about Yue because it’s not information that can just be spread around freely. We weren’t even supposed to meet, and her father only allowed us to continue talking on the stipulation no one else ever found out. So I’m trusting you again, and I know Bun Ma and Ju Long will keep this a secret, but she is actually somewhat distantly related to me. We’ve decided to honor our ancestors' bonds and call each other cousins, because Akari was an aunt to my ancestors as much as she was to Yue’s ancestors. I’m not saying more because I figure you’re smart enough to figure it out.

Because, I’m not an idiot, no matter what you think! The song isn’t that inflammatory! Okay, sure it contradicts popular knowledge of Yangchen, but we hardly know anything about her anyways. I guess I can understand why it might get banned, but it’s still ridiculous! What’s the official statement behind it?

Thank you for trying so hard to see Her. I’m glad her new guards are making things a little easier. And I don’t want you to think I’m just using you as a messenger hawk. I am really happy to be writing to you and hearing about what you’re up to! But, could you let Her know what I’ve been up to? And that I’m working tirelessly to get back? I haven’t forgotten about her.

If you were any animal, you’d be a fierce raven eagle, not a messenger hawk,

Dao

So here’s the thing. A good thief was one who blended in with her surroundings. No amount of lock picking or sleight of hand could equate to hiding in plain sight. It was a nebulous skill—making people see what they wanted to see. Obviously, Zuko was having a hard time grasping that aspect of his lessons with Jingyi. He was becoming a right terror at lock picking! But even with how often Jingyi explained the importance of letting people make assumptions, he failed to connect that with her !

Jingyi knew Zuko respected her, there was no doubt about that. It was also, however, obvious that he still viewed her as the ditz who thought he could hide a platypus bear in his room. That wasn’t to say Jingyi wasn’t the ditz who made such a ludicrous bet. She knew her strengths and weaknesses, and sometimes she was a bit of an idiot. And see, Jingyi only played it up for specific situations, like when stealing a performance report out from under a dickhead captain’s nose, but she also didn’t go out of her way to dissuade people from viewing her as an airhead.

Because of this, Jingyi knew for a fact that Zuko either underestimated the original crew’s rumor mill or he underestimated Jingyi’s memory and ability to piece things together. Or maybe it was a mix of both. Regardless, the point was, Jingyi remembered the short period of time after Zuko met that spirit library professor and before he ran off to the Si Wong desert. 

It was hard to picture Zuko as anything other than an Avatar Yangchen expert. Back then, though, he only knew the basics the Fire Nation said against her, and that Princess Akari had spirits dreams which brought them together in their childhood. So when he came back to the Sazanami after meeting the spirit library professor, rambling about the possible heritage that Princess Akari dreamed about, it stuck in Jingyi’s head. A civilization of air and fire benders? Dragons who could bend both ? It was crazy to consider! 

Then he ran off to the desert for months on end and came back obsessed with Avatar Yangchen and all of her companions. There had been no more talk of ancient civilizations and creatures of multiple elements. It was story after story of Yangchen’s exploits. Even Akari’s spirit dreams which had brought the women together were more of a footnote than a topic of consideration. Okay, maybe Jingyi couldn’t blame Zuko for assuming no one remembered he once, briefly, got excited about a professor’s mixed element theory. It even seemed like General Iroh had forgotten! 

Jingyi would have forgotten about him sharing the professor’s research, if not for the fact that Zuko was discussing such things with his new group of friends as if he didn’t know anything substantial. Oh, he mentioned the potential of creatures that potential dual-element societies could be based on, but Jingyi distinctly remembered three animals and communities the professor had historical evidence of. 

It made no sense whatsoever. If she’d noticed Zuko’s silence on the topic after returning from the library, Jingyi would have chalked it up to him finding something that discredited the theory, so what was the point in talking about it anymore? But now ? What reason could Zuko possibly have to facilitate discussions about creatures that could bend multiple elements and not share the entirety of the professor’s research? Forget the professor! What about Yangchen’s memoirs? There was no way she didn’t talk about Akari’s spirit dreams and, thus, support the idea of an air and fire society. 

The only conclusion Jingyi could come to was absurd. Absolutely ludicrous! If believing the prince could hide a platypus bear in his room made her a ditz, what did it make her to believe Zuko’s silence meant he found living dual-element animals and was trying to protect them? It was so ridiculous, but, honestly. One of the creatures that professor told him about had lived in the Si Wong desert . Where had Zuko gone, and then never mentioned the animals again after coming back? Exactly!

Most damning of all, though, was the fire and air dragon the professor had told Zuko about. The dragon he’d spoken at length about with Bun Ma and Ju Long before going to the desert. He’d been so curious about the possibility of Princess Akari’s spirit dreams being connected to the professor’s research. If Avatar Yangchen’s memoirs had discredited the idea, wouldn’t Zuko have at least complained about the let down? The silence then hadn’t been noteworthy because he never stopped talking about other things. Now it just seemed too obvious. 

Why would Zuko keep evidence of Akari’s spirit dreams secret other than to protect something? Maybe something he found at the beginning of their journey on the Sazanami , which had led his initial interest in Avatar Yangchen and had instigated an entire betting pool about his strange behavior…

If Bun Ma had been right and Zuko had a dragon egg with him this entire time, Jingyi was going to- Well, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do. Maybe stop doubting herself when her mind got away from her. A girl could be an idiot and be brilliant.

So Jingyi finally decided to take a page out of Bun Ma’s book and just ask Zuko straight out. He clearly hadn’t been ready to discuss his dragon a year ago, but maybe all the theoretical discussions in the mess hall meant he was ready now.

“So, just curious,” Jingyi said in the relative privacy of the cargo hold where they held Zuko’s thieving lessons. The door was obnoxiously loud; it was hard for someone to sneak in on them. “Is there a reason you’re not telling your debate club about the actual evidence of dual bending animals that professor had?”

Zuko startled so hard that he toppled off the hay bale he was sitting on. His arms were tied behind his back, so he had no hope of catching himself and hit the ground with a reverberating thud. Before Jingyi could help him, he sat up, arms free and eyes alight with an intense fervor. 

“How do you know about that?!”

“Because you talked about it with Bun Ma and Ju Long when you first met him. And you’re not quiet, so pretty much all of us heard about it.” Jingyi was about to praise his speedy escape, but there was no rope for her to retrieve. She sighed and fixed the prince with her most unimpressed stare. “I’m not getting in trouble with your uncle when someone notices how much rope keeps disappearing and starts asking questions!”

“Sorry, I won’t do it again,” Zuko said, like a little liar because he said that every time he got frustrated and burned through the ropes in his escape lessons. “But, that’s not important right now! You remembered ?! And- Wait- How do you feel about the idea? That there could be animals and people that don’t stick to one element?”

“I feel like it sounds pretty cool?” Jingyi dropped back on her hay bale seat with a shrug. “Honestly, it makes more sense than the strict division of elements that we have. And, well, it’s going to be the end result if we win this war. It’s already happening in the colonies with people like Bun Ma, yeah?”

Zuko leaned forward, still on the ground and breathing heavily with that intensity still in his eyes. “But that’s earth . What about air? Would fire and air be okay?”

“That’s what you do isn’t it?” 

“Yeah, but I’m a firebender first. What if someone was an airbender?”

There were no more airbenders, but that didn’t feel like the right answer to give. Jingyi frowned, her heart starting to thud against her chest. Something about Zuko’s intensity was contagious. 

“Well, I don’t think it’d really matter, would it? We’re taught airbenders were our enemy, but obviously it was the Air Army that was bad, yeah? You’ve made that more than clear enough with all your Yangchen talk. If someone was an airbender like her, well it’d be no different than Bun Ma’s situation.”

A wild rush of emotions flitted across Zuko’s face before settling on a grim determination. His hands flew up in a rush of signs, “How’s your sign language?”

Despite being one of the first to make a proper use of Zuko’s dictionary, Jingyi was leagues behind the level of Zuko and his friends. She chatted with Chanda often enough, sure, but Jingyi spent more time with her own ragtag group of friends. Granted, Jae and Kavi recently started instigating more conversations in sign language, so Jingyi felt confident in replying, “It’s decent, I guess.”

“Jae’s wanted to recruit you longer than I’ve known about the Wings. So, I guess now’s a better time than ever.” A smile started to break through Zuko’s stern facade. It quickly disappeared again as he signed, “First of all, I need to tell you the truth about the Air Army-”

Chapter Text

Dao,

You’re so full of it. Quit it with the blatant flattery. I’ll do you favors because you’re pathetic, not because you poorly compliment me. However I refuse to do more than pass your letters on. Which would prove difficult for your friends considering our letters are in code . Did you even think about that, idiot? Thus, I have shared our code with your menagerie. You’re welcome.

As for your historian friend, I refuse to believe you befriended a princess. Get Chanda to confirm this or else I’ll believe you’re even more pathetic than I realized. Furthermore…

[On the backside of the letter the handwriting changes, but continues in code.]

This is rabbit mouse. It’s risky to write, even going through Darts, but cat sloth and I wanted to say in our own words how proud of you we are. We miss you of course, but we both think we’re where we need to be right now. We haven’t forgotten what we learned from you, and we’re also keeping our promises to pursue our shared goals. We’ll make sure you’ll be welcomed home when the time comes.

Cat sloth says good work with the song, and I agree. Keep doing whatever it is you’re doing, because it’s working. (And it’s a brilliant song. I can’t wait until we can talk about it together!)

We need to be careful about our interactions with Darts, so I won’t be writing again. Darts promises to pass on your letters whenever she can so we can keep up with you, and she promises to keep you updated if anything big happens. But otherwise she won’t be relaying messages between us anymore. Don’t worry about us.

However, we have heard how lonely your sister is. Like Darts said, there's a good chance her mentor will be getting your sister under her tutelage as well. Which is great, but I think she’d be happy to hear from you. If all goes as planned, Darts can pass on letters you write for your sister. 

We miss you, stay strong,

Rabbit mouse

P.s. To likely confirm your suspicions, yes, cat sloth wasn’t interested in learning your cipher. I found it to be a fun challenge. Even if Darts is mildly terrifying. 

It sucked that the Sazanami’s crew was so small that the engineers got roped into deck maintenance whenever they were done with their work. On Yan’s old ship, he could spend the whole day messing with machinery and no one questioned him. Here, Head Engineer Panit kept close tabs on their productivity and anyone he could spare was sent to help the deck crew with the monotonous task of fighting rust. 

The weather today was mild, thus Petty Officer Takehiko had the ship anchored so his crew could work on the ship’s funnels. Which meant Yan and Souta were also suspended high above the deck on a narrow piece of wood, kept safe only by the ropes attached to their harnesses. Yan was a good friend, if he said so himself, because Chanda drew the short straw with Souta today. She would have toughed it out—she was a good little worker like that—but they knew how terrified she was of heights after Zuko spilled the beans about their glider adventure. 

(Both Yan and Souta wanted to take Zuko up on his offer to take them gliding sometime. They weren’t petrified of leaving the ground.)

Well, actually, Yan still would have switched with her months ago before they joined the prince’s friend group. But now, he could cite a more admirable reason for exchanging duties other than sticking with Souta. 

“Elephant rat,” Souta snickered, tracing the outline of the rust with his chisel. 

Yan squinted at the rust spot. He tilted his head to the side. Nope, he didn’t see it. “It’s totally an ass.”

“You say that about every spot!”

“Well, they all look like butts. That’s not my fault.”

Souta snorted and started chipping the ass-rust away. “Your complete lack of imagination is appalling.” 

“Hey now, I take offense to that. Who-”

Just then, a light breeze picked up around them. Yan didn’t think anything of it. Someone shouted from the deck, but he was too focused on their conversation to make sense of the words. The ship suddenly rocked as a stronger gust of wind hit them. 

The world moved in slow motion. 

Hands free, Yan grabbed the ropes suspending their wooden platform to stabilize himself. Souta’s arms were outstretched to work on the rust spot. As their platform pulled away from the funnel with the ship’s movement, Souta flailed. The wind pushed the platform back toward the funnel, and out from under Souta’s feet. 

He hung there, suspended in the air, and for a moment Yan thought his best friend would fly.

Then he fell. 

Another wave hit the Sazanami and the wind did not stop. Yan was helpless to watch as Souta got thrown around at the end of his safety ropes. The momentum of his swinging soon had him headed directly for the unforgiving metal side of the funnel. He braced himself for impact, leaning back in his harness and sticking a leg out in hope of maybe catching himself.

Even over the whistling wind and shouts of their crew mates, Yan heard the sickening crunch of Souta’s leg crumbling against the funnel.

The sudden gusts slowed to a bare breeze. The ocean calmed and the ship stilled.

It was Souta’s agonized screams that jerked Yan back to reality. Someone was yelling at him to wait for them to move the platform, but Yan wasn’t listening. He frantically yanked at his safety ropes to propel himself down and get level with Souta. There was bone sticking out of his leg. Oh spirits, Yan wanted to cry or throw up. Or both. But he couldn’t, not while his best friend was delirious from pain.

Gently, he pulled Souta close and tried not to look at his leg. 

“I’ll get us to the deck. You’ll be fine. Everything will be fine.”

Souta whimpered and held tight, burying his face in the crook of Yan’s neck. 

Their descent felt like an eternity. Yan’s muscles ached, and even through his gloves his hands burned from the rope. Finally, finally , they neared the deck and there were outstretched arms waiting to catch them.

Yan’s feet hit the floor, his arms still secure around Souta as others kept him off his mangled leg.

“Where’s the fucking medic?!”

Spirits, Ume could really use a drink right about now. But unfortunately for her, Zuko corralled Xue into limiting Ume’s alcohol consumption. Gone were the days where she could whip her flask out of her belt and dull her surroundings. It wasn’t the worst —and she still got to indulge with Xue some evenings—but at moments like this, Ume just wanted some damn booze.

“Can’t you give him something?” The engineer brat demanded from his other half’s bedside, barely paying attention to Zuko treating the rope burns on his hands.

Ume ignored him as she prepped her surgical supplies. Honestly, the kid had a broken leg. It was a nasty break, sure, but it wasn’t life threatening. There was no reason to be acting like he was on death’s door, no matter how much pain he was in.

“We did,” Zuko said, much more patient than Ume would ever be. Who knew he was capable of decent bedside manner? “It’ll take a bit longer to kick in, and even then we don’t have anything strong enough to completely numb the pain or safely knock him out. But don’t worry. Souta is in good hands.”

“Capable hands at least,” Ume mumbled. “Now get out. You’re in the way.”

The brat was ready to argue, but Zuko once again stepped in. “You can wait right outside and then you can stay here with him when Medic Ume is done, okay?”

“You promise he’ll be okay?”

Zuko faltered. His medical training before Ume was pharmaceutical centered. With Ume, lessons were infrequent, so they were still working through his understanding of basic anatomy and treatment of minor injuries. He had no idea how to set a break this bad, let alone what the recovery process would be.

In the silence of Zuko’s hesitation, Souta let out a pained whine. 

“He’ll be bedridden while the bone heals, but he’ll walk again,” Ume said, slamming her tray of tools on the bedside table. “ If you get the fuck out so I can work.”

“Stop being a nuisance, Yan,” Souta said through gritted teeth. 

Those few words were enough to get said nuisance moving. With one last desperate hug, Yan left the infirmary. The sound of pacing feet immediately started echoing from the hall, but that was much more bearable than a demanding brat. 

“Alright kid, here’s what’s going to happen. Zuko here is going to assist me, unless you’d rather he didn’t-” Souta shook his head. “Great. This will be a breeze then. We’re going to clean the puncture site, then I’ll set the bone. I’ll be sticking some pins in you to keep everything in place, and last I’ll stitch you up. It’s going to look awful, but the pins won’t hurt once they’re in.”

“Once they’re in?”

Sharp brat, for someone with part of his fibula poking out of him. 

“Drilling the pins in is going to hurt like a bitch with the weak meds we’re provided as noncombatants. Scream if you need to. Don’t fight passing out.”

Souta paled, impressive considering how dim he already looked. He then rolled his head to the side to grin miserably at Zuko. “Any chance of you having a sudden breakthrough with Akari’s gentle flame?”

Ah yes, Akari’s fabled numbing fire. Ume heard plenty about both it and Tarkik’s medical knowledge which assisted Akari in developing it. Every couple of weeks, Zuko got it in his head to attempt wielding it during his lessons with Ume. He only managed to create a heatless fire, nothing with any sort of anesthetic properties. 

Zuko turned to Ume in uncertainty.

“Doesn’t hurt to try,” Ume said with a shrug. “Give it a go while I get started. I’ll let you know when I need assistance.”

Really, Ume didn’t need an extra hand until she set the bone, so she was thankful for Souta’s suggestion. It got Zuko out of her hair so she could work without having to explain every action. Used to Zuko’s strange, heatless fire, Ume had no problem working around and through the flickering flames. 

The infirmary was oddly peaceful. Yan’s echoing footsteps from the hall were rhythmic and easy to tune out. It was cool in the metal confines of the ship; there was no oppressive heat to make the smell of blood and antiseptic ferment and cloud the air. Souta’s tearful whimpers were sparse and quiet; there were no other patients screaming out in agony as they waited for someone to get to them. Zuko focused single-mindedly on his glowing hands; no other doctors were shouting over surrounding chaos to be heard by their assistants as they tried to save their patients’ lives. 

No one was waiting for Ume to quickly splint this soldier’s leg and move on to the next. She could take her time to avoid further discomfort while cleaning and disinfecting. She was well-rested and able to focus on each step. If this had been a battlefield, Souta would have been a low priority. Ume or another medic wouldn’t have gotten to him until they were several surgeries in.

Dare Ume say it, by the time she finished cleaning the wound and assessing her plan of action, she no longer craved a drink. 

“Okay Zuko, if you haven’t made it work yet, it’s not going to happen today. I need you to hold him down while I set the bone.”

Souta immediately tensed. Zuko nodded, but didn’t move his hands from Souta’s leg. He scrunched his nose and his teeth worried into his lip. Something in the air shifted. Zuko’s flames flared white and Souta suddenly relaxed. 

“And you call yourself a shit firebender,” Souta said on an exhale, eyelids growing heavy.

The fire in Zuko’s hands sputtered out as he frantically leaned forward. “Did it work? Souta! Did it work?!” When Souta drifted off instead of answering, Zuko turned his crazed gaze to Ume. “Did I do it?”

“I don’t know and don’t care right now. Hold him down in case it didn’t work and he wakes up.”

Zuko wilted, but did as was asked of him. Setting the bone didn’t wake Souta, nor did the first pin Ume drilled into his leg. Either the shock of the situation finally got to him, or Zuko really had succeeded.

However, at the end of the day, it didn’t change Ume’s job. She placed the pins around the fracture and secured a frame to keep them in place. Once done, she supervised Zuko as he stitched the puncture wound closed. She didn’t think much of it when she lit the room’s lanterns to give Zuko better lighting. 

It wasn’t until they were done and Zuko opened the door to his entire friend group, half the engine department, and General Iroh camped out in the hall did Ume realize how hungry she was. And thirsty. Not craving a drink, but genuinely parched. She glanced out the window and realized it was dark. They had started midday. How had hours passed without her noticing?

The quiet calm of the infirmary was disrupted by overlapping voices and the clatter of dishware. Ume was pushed onto a chair and food appeared in front of her. Heartfelt gratitude showered over her. Yan went so far as to hug her.

Warmth filled Ume’s chest, such that she had not felt without the burn of alcohol in a long time. This was why young Ume had started studying medicine, why she had entered the military medical corps so many years ago. She’d once been idealistic and naive, wanting to help people, not just keep them alive. 

Ume had thought that part of her had died along with the countless, nameless soldiers on her operating tables. 

Laughter bounced around the Sazanami’s metal walls. Relief and joy permeated the air where Ume had only known pain and sorrow. 

Perhaps it wasn’t naive for this old woman to care again.

Sunlight filtered through the narrow windows in Zuko’s room. It warmed his back as he sat on the floor with his lóng egg. Fire danced in Zuko’s hands and around the egg’s shimmering shell. He scrunched his nose and desperately chased the feeling of Akari’s gentle flame. It was chilling like plunging into the arctic waters of the North Pole, weightless like soaring through the sky with his glider, peaceful like floating in the open sea while free diving. 

It was impossible to recreate.

Zuko scowled and extinguished his flames. 

“Why can’t I do it ?” He hissed to the egg. “I did it. I know I did, even if Souta can’t remember how it felt before he passed out.”

The egg glowed impassively. 

“But I should be able to do it, shouldn’t I? You’re Akari’s legacy! How can I hope to hold a candle up to her if I can’t perfect her gentle flame?”

No answer came, but warmth seeped through Zuko’s palms. He sighed and curled around his stubborn lóng. 

“I hope what I’m doing is enough to help you hatch,” he said softly, pressing his cheek into the textured shell. He closed his eyes and took comfort in the egg’s warmth. “I love you. I’ll protect you. So just hatch already.”

The egg’s glow pulsed.

With his eyes closed, Zuko was none the wiser.

Chapter Text

Dear Azula,

As you might have heard from Mai, I’m alive and well. I don’t know if you read my previous letter to you, or if you burned it and this one is going to join it, thus this is a waste of time. But I’ll take that chance again, since I do miss you. I wrote that before, if you didn’t read that one but you are reading now. Or if you did read it and didn’t believe me after I stopped writing… But I do.

It sounds like things are really difficult for you now. I know you don’t want to hear it, but I’m worried about you. It sucks being separated from your friends, and I can’t imagine how difficult it must be living in the same city as Mai but never being able to see her. Mai wrote something about her mentor trying to help, so I hope things get better for you soon.

I don’t know if Mai or Ty Lee ever told you about Akari’s gentle flame last year, but it was a special firebending technique she developed with Yangchen’s waterbending master, Tarkik, in an attempt to recreate a healing fire Akari stumbled upon in her youth. She never rediscovered the healing fire, but her gentle flame still had properties useful to healing! It numbs things it touches, which makes it incredibly useful during surgeries or injury recovery to mitigate pain.

I’ve been trying to teach myself the gentle flame since I read about it in Yangchen’s memoirs. It’s been pretty futile. I at least rediscovered heatbending, which has been incredibly useful in my quest. I think I wrote about that to Ty Lee, and I assume she told you about it.

But, recently, I think I succeeded in using Akari’s gentle flame! One of my friends had a bad accident on deck, and he needed surgery to fix his broken leg. It was horrible, honestly. He was in a lot of pain, so he asked me to try using the gentle flame. I didn’t expect it to work, but just when I was about to give up an odd chill came over me. I don’t even know the right words to describe it, but I think the biggest thing was how calm I suddenly felt. All my worry and fear for my friend disappeared and my fire flashed white. My friend immediately relaxed and fell unconscious. He’s convinced I succeeded, but I cannot recreate it no matter how hard I try, so I’m not certain it did work.

The problem is, Yangchen writes about the gentle flame as something you need precise control over. I’m not very good with that, but that is your expertise, isn’t it? I dunno, but I thought it might be something you’d enjoy trying. If only to rub it in my face that you could do it when I couldn’t.

I’m going to keep writing to you whenever I write to Mai, even if you end up burning every letter and never read them. 

I don’t expect a reply either way,

Zuko

There was an unspoken rule in the navy that if you didn’t reach ensign by age 30, you were never going to advance in your military career. Than had been promoted to petty officer less because he deserved it, but more because his commanding officer hoped giving Than a leadership position would make him apply himself more. Now here he was, turning 30 in a few months and stationed on a non-combatant ship to chauffeur a banished prince. 

Than knew he drove his commanding officers batty. On paper, he was a model soldier. He was top of his trainee class. His firebending was strong and consistent. No behavior write-ups or attitude problems. But Than lacked the ambition that characterized military firebenders. He didn’t care about rising through the ranks or making a name for himself. 

Than didn’t exactly have a choice in enlisting, he’d known he would the day sparks first fell from his hands. It was hard to dodge the draft, especially so as an able-bodied firebender. Joining the military had always been a simple fact of Than’s life, and nothing more. He didn’t resent it, but neither did he celebrate it. 

The nice thing about getting assigned to the Sazanami was that no one cared that Than didn’t care. Everyone was fine with him simply doing his job, which was exactly how Than liked it. Promotions meant leadership and that just wasn’t the kind of man Than was. Leadership was for people like Lieutenant Kavi and Prince Zuko, even if they were the most unconventional leaders Than ever met in his military career.

Maybe if there’d been an officer like Lieutenant Kavi earlier in Than’s career, he might have found a spark of ambition. Not only was the head of the weapons department an inspiration with his recovery from the siege, but he had an uncanny ability to make others want to do better. His mix of praise and light-hearted corrections did more to encourage soldiers during training sessions than any amount of criticism and shouting Than had experienced in the past. It made sense, but then why was it so shocking? Than found his firebending improving for the first time in years. General Iroh sometimes even commended Than on his skills!

And then there was Prince Zuko, who somehow managed to act like an absolute brat and still win over the crew. Than never had much personal interaction with the kid, but the ship was small enough that it was impossible not to be up-to-date with his activities and friendships. It wasn’t even from Lieutenant Kavi that Than heard the most about the prince, but from Ye-jun of all people, once he started hanging out with the prince’s group. All too often Ye-jun joined the scattered mix of the deck and weapons departments to ask for their thoughts on the latest hot topic from the prince’s table. 

Than didn’t care much for talking in circles about bending theories and legends, but he was mildly fascinated by what he heard. Firebending was just another weapon in his arsenal. It wasn’t vital to his identity or even his life. But the way Ye-jun spoke about the prince’s discussions, it was as if the elements had a personality of their own and a relationship with benders. 

What a strange thing to consider. Why would fire choose to gift itself to an ambitionless person like Than?

Recently, such thoughts plagued Than and brought him to an uncomfortable realization about himself. At some point, he’d started taking pride in his apathy and lack of ambition. He did what was asked of him, and didn’t care about doing anything more. So what did he care about? 

“You have a good eye, sir! That girl there is the fastest of her clutch.” 

Than stepped away from the mongoose lizard he’d been admiring and gave the breeder a polite smile. “Sorry, I’m not looking to buy.”

“You’re from that ship that just docked yesterday, yeah? The prince’s ? You clearly know a good lizard when you see one. Haven’t heard what the prince has done to go and get himself banished, but surely one of my mounts can help him get unbanished!”

The obvious attempt to dig for information while also making a sales pitch reminded Than of days long past when he helped his father on market days. Once, before he'd realized there was only one path for his life to lead him, Than had cared about the animals his family raised. He’d taken pride in seeing eggs hatch and grow into strong mongoose lizards, hadn’t he? 

“I’ll pass on the recommendation,” Than said, slipping away from the breeder’s stables to return to the market proper. He'd taken his brief shore leave in an attempt to center himself, but he only felt more confused. Even if he'd once taken pride in raising animals, he couldn’t do that now, so what did it matter?

“Is this an airbender pendant? Is that a meditation rug? And an offering bowl?!” A familiar raised voice carried across the street. Prince Zuko stood in front of a stall full of eclectic items. He was surprisingly without a chaperone. Or perhaps, not so surprising as Than remembered this was the first shore leave since Engineer Souta’s accident. The prince’s usual entourage was likely occupied with their recovering friend and did not notice the prince slipping away. Which meant there was no one to temper Prince Zuko’s tone as he demanded, “Where did you get these?”

Than watched with a distant interest. What did Prince Zuko care about, truly? There was no doubt of his ambitious nature; he was an obvious choice for fire to grace with its flames. But from Than’s perspective, the prince cared about too much . How did he have the energy for it all? How did he decide what to pursue and what to leave behind?

“You have an eye for antiques, young man!” The merchant said, clearly determined to make a sale despite Prince Zuko’s aggressive tone. “These have been passed down in my family since Fire Lord Sozin defeated the Air Army!”

“How?” Prince Zuko’s sudden drop in volume had the merchant relaxing. But Than knew, as did anyone who lived on the Sazanami , an abruptly quiet prince was a cause for concern. Whether it led to a larger outburst or future trouble, it was never a good sign. 

“Airbenders used to terrorize this town, my grandma told us, she did. Her pa cleaned up after their raids and kept things here and there. But these aren’t just any kind of airbender junk! Oh no, these very items helped our nation weed out the cowards who abandoned their army and tried to hide from Fire Lord Sozin!” The merchant waved around a pendant on a beaded necklace with a proud laugh. “Tricked the deserters into thinking they had compatriots, we did! And when their guard was down, the Fire Army took them out! And my family has kept these pieces of history since then. You, too, can own a piece of our great nation’s triumph against the Air Army!”

“I’m sure I can’t afford it,” Prince Zuko said, already walking away. 

The merchant deflated and hung the pendant back up. He caught Than staring and was about to call him over, but Than followed Prince Zuko’s lead and headed back toward the Sazanami . His stomach squirmed even worse than earlier. Something about the merchant's story didn’t sit right with him. Perhaps it was because he was spending so much time obsessing over what he did and didn’t care about. 

Throughout his military career, Than did what was asked of him and nothing more. He’d never been faced with a situation where he’d wanted to do less , let alone disagree with an order. What would he have done if he were one of the soldiers at the beginning of the war tasked with hunting down stragglers of the Air Army? The tactic the merchant described sounded… cruel. Inhumane. The Air Army had been their enemy, yes, but no matter how much they’d changed from Avatar Yangchen’s airbenders, they’d still been people . If anything, deserters would have likely been against the Air Army’s ideals… So why would the Fire Nation have seen them as the enemy as well?

Spirits, Than wished he could go back to his peaceful days of being content with not caring. He didn’t like where his wandering thoughts took him. Moral dilemmas like this were for leaders , weren’t they? 

Surprisingly, Than heard no shout nor whisper about Prince Zuko’s encounter with the merchant. He expected the prince to go to his group of friends and strike up a discussion about what he'd learned. But Ye-jun didn’t come bemoaning about the difficult topic to the rest of them, and Prince Zuko’s voice never carried across the mess hall. 

Than almost managed to put the entire incident from his mind until the morning the Sazanami was set to leave port. A seaman from the night watch burst into the mess hall as breakfast began, crowing about a big robbery that happened in town overnight. 

“The merchant woke half the town with his yelling for the city guard to find the thief!” The seaman said, giddily recounting the ordeal. “Someone stole a bunch of apparently priceless Air Army relics. You’d have thought the man’s child had been taken from him or something the way he was screaming and crying!”

Prince Zuko’s absence in the mess hall was nothing of note. He broke his fast with General Iroh most days, only coming to the mess hall in the morning when he wanted to make plans with his friends. No one else knew about the prince’s encounter with the same merchant who had been robbed. Only Than knew about the prince’s silence that only ever spelled trouble.

Than couldn’t help but wonder. It was a logical assumption to suspect Prince Zuko of the robbery…

“Oh! And where’s Prince Zuko? I almost forgot the best part! You won’t believe who the merchant insists the thief is.”

Anyone who wasn’t actively listening to the seaman turned their attention to him now. The entire mess hall fell silent as everyone waited to hear what he had to say. He grinned under the attention and dramatically shared his news. 

“The Avatar!”

A dreary, persistent drizzle had been falling over Yu Dao for a week. The miserable weather could have been tolerable if not for the city guard’s increased patrols. Usual patrol pairs were increased to groups of three or four for the guards’ safety, even if they disagreed with the reasoning. But there had been several attacks against the city guard over the past month; the captains were concerned and refused to decrease measures no matter how soggy their guards got.

“Oi, this is private property,” Kong shouted over the sound of the rain hitting the awning above them. He gently kicked the vagrant who’d settled down for the night in the shop’s doorway. Listen, Kong got it. He would do anything to get out of this rain too, but the guy could at least find somewhere out of sight from the night patrol.

“Fuck off,” the old man said, curling his blanket tighter around him and spitting at Kong’s feet. 

One of Kong’s patrol mates stormed over and snatched the blanket off the man. “Bad move, idiot, he was the only one offering you a nice way back to the gutter.”

There was no point in trying to defend the man. All of Kong’s coworkers were in a worse mood than he was. He didn't like to harass people down and out with their luck, but he’d rather not fight with his testy peers even more. 

The old man was, unfortunately, an idiot, and tried to pick a fight to get his blanket back. Kong stepped back as his patrol group gleefully took their frustrations out on their victim. Maybe if he reported this, Kong could get assigned to a new group… Or even more likely, the entire city guard would have it out for him. 

It was distasteful, but Kong wasn’t about to stick his neck out for a rude, homeless man. Which was why he also pretended not to see the person coming toward them in a rather suspicious manner. Maybe any other night Kong would have been cautious, but the person’s path kept them mostly out of the rain, so it was justified. Kong hoped whoever it was, they didn’t duck into a house before reaching them. This would all be a lot easier if a civilian reported the misconduct. 

Once they were close enough for Kong to make out details through the rain, a cold rush of dread shot through him. A glaring, red mask obscured the black-clad figure’s face. Kong turned to call a warning when fire filled the small space under the cover of the buildings. The blast hit Kong harder than any firebending attack he’d felt before. He fell to the ground, winded and stunned as his cohorts shouted and engaged with their attacker. 

Kong groaned, rolling over to watch the fight erupting in the street. The masked man was terrifying. He moved in strange, unpredictable ways that had the guards scrambling to keep their advantage of numbers. For a moment, Kong feared he was about to witness his entire patrol be taken out. Instead, the homeless man suddenly chose to make his escape from where he’d been cowering in the dirt. He shoved past two guards and the masked man. The last of the guards took the opportunity to send a rock flying into their attacker. 

It was a solid hit and knocked the masked man to the ground. The firebender of their unit recovered from the vagrant’s distraction and called forth flames hot enough to survive the drizzling rain. She shot her fire at the attacker with a shout. 

In a blink, the fire was extinguished and the masked man made his escape. 

The others wouldn’t have seen. They would make the logical assumption that the masked man took control of and extinguished the flames. But from Kong’s vantage point, seated against the side of a building, he saw what truly happened.

And that was the masked man reaching out for the puddle in front of him. Water rose up to extinguish the fire. But, had he not used fire to attack Kong?

There was only one person who could bend different elements. 

Chapter Text

Dumb-dumb,

I’m absolutely fine. I’m offended you dare worry about me when you’re the one banished and never coming back. As if you have any grounds to worry about me.

Dumb-dumb,

Don’t worry about me. Worry about yourself, idiot. So what if I constantly have lessons. It’s none of your concern. I get to see Mai sometimes. That’s enough. I’m not some child who relies on friendship , like you apparently do.

Zuzu,

I miss you too. I’m lonely. 

Dao,

Lady Xiulan’s plan worked. I shouldn’t be surprised as she is a formidable woman. Of course your father didn’t stand a chance against her, Fire Lord or not. I’ve been seeing Her weekly now that Lady Xiulan is in charge of her lessons on court politics. 

Even more shocking, she mentioned something about Akari that I know neither Tumbles nor I told her about. I believe she actually read your letter to her, but she adamantly denies it. Despite her denial, she clearly desires a better recount of Akari’s gentle flame. So do write to her again, for I have no understanding of the minutiae of firebending techniques, nor do I desire to. 

I can’t believe you insinuated a princess couldn’t read to her face. You’re such an idiot. I’m even more shocked she forgave you after that to become friends, let alone agree to honor your distant relation as cousins. She’s much too good for you, I hope you know. Did she have any interesting stories about Siniq? I must admit, she piqued my curiosity the most of Yangchen’s eclectic cast you’ve written about. 

Recently, my mother has…

When Zuko stole those Air Nomad relics off that asshole merchant, he hadn’t expected to hear him blame the Avatar for the theft. But no, apparently Zuko was so caught up in his plotting and scheming with the Wings that he managed to completely miss the rumors spreading through the colonies!

Uncle kept praising Zuko for his ‘maturity’ and ‘patience’ as they sailed to Yu Dao, and then as Zuko began hunting down the sources of the rumors. He kept expecting Zuko to blow up and get upset about how he hadn’t heard the rumors sooner. Zuko was a bit peeved at himself for getting lazy with his direct Avatar search… But he also doubted this was the Avatar. 

He remembered the horrid debacle in a small occupied Earth Kingdom village at the beginning of his search. Rumors grew and spread until a young earthbender’s bragging to his friends became a basis for an Avatar sighting. Apparently, this was a little more substantial because someone saw a firebender bend water. 

But if someone saw Zuko heatbending, they’d think he was an airbender. He pondered the logistics of doing something similar with water enough that it wasn’t difficult to put his theories to the test once he heard about the rumor. Heating up water and moving it was way harder than working with air, but it was possible. What could Zuko call it? Was it just another form of heatbending? But then it’d be difficult to differentiate between the air or water kind. Boilbending? No that sounded horrific-

Regardless! Zuko was experienced enough now with the gray area between elements that he didn’t want to get his hopes up. Yu Dao was the Fire Nation’s first colony, and where Bun Ma called home. If she was any indication of the city’s culture, Zuko knew there was a strong foundation for people mixing bending styles just as she had. 

The fact it was fire and water gave Zuko the smallest bit of doubt. It should have been a firebender controlling the earth somehow, if this followed his theory… No, Zuko wasn’t going to get his hopes up. The Avatar couldn’t return until airbenders were accepted, and he’d know when that happened because his lóng would hatch!

“Are you Watchman Kong?” 

Said watchman looked up from his paperwork and frowned at Zuko with obvious confusion. Everyone Zuko tried to talk to gave him that look. Why was it that no one found it weird when Hui went around talking to random people, but everyone stared at Prince Zuko as if he was a three-headed elephant rat? It made Zuko feel even more uncomfortable in his light armor and tight phoenix tail. Following Avatar rumors had always been a job as Hui, but everyone was adamant that Hui couldn’t exist in the same area as Prince Zuko, or else the entire identity would fall apart. 

So here Zuko was—stuck using official channels as Kavi and Jae donned plainclothes to get real information out of townsfolk. 

“Uh, yes, sorry- I am, sir. Your highness?” Watchman Kong abruptly stood and dropped into a bow.

“At ease, watchman,” Zuko mumbled, heat filling his cheeks. Why did everyone have to make such a big production about this? Gathering information as Hui was so much easier. “I’ve been told you’re the first one to see the masked attacker waterbend. Could you tell me about what happened?”

“Excuse me, your highness, but it is all in my report. Did the captain not give it to you?”

“No, she did, but I’m a bit unclear how this guy managed to catch your entire patrol unit off guard. The others in your unit said they were assisting a homeless man and that you were supposed to be on the lookout for this exact reason. There’d been several attacks by this point, right? So why weren’t you doing your job?”

Watchman Kong paled. He anxiously glanced around the bullpen, and his coworkers ducked their heads in an attempt to hide their blatant eavesdropping. Maybe Zuko was being too harsh, but he already had an idea why the attacker got the drop on Watchman Kong and his unit. No thanks to anyone in the city guard, of course. In a single evening, Kavi and Jae uncovered the corruption of the guard, and how this ‘attacker’ was more of a vigilante, protecting the people of the city from the guards’ abuse. Meanwhile Zuko was stuck with people lying to his face and having to play nice despite it.

Uncle chose that moment to intervene, placing a hand on Zuko’s shoulder with a comforting smile. “Please excuse Prince Zuko’s tone, Watchman Kong. He’s not trying to accuse you of doing poor work! But perhaps you could give us a little more in depth detail about that night to help us track down this attacker?”

Zuko rolled his eyes, but let Uncle give the man an out. Whatever, it wasn’t like he’d actually admit to beating up citizens. “The waterbending. What was the attacker's stance like? Did they seem surprised to do it? Did it seem like they used their firebending on the water first?”

“Um. It happened fast enough no one believed I saw it until he did it again in the next attack…” Watchman Kong frowned and actually put some thought to Zuko’s questions before speaking again. “I don’t know if it’s true , but it seemed like a desperate move to me. Like he had no choice but to use water to stop Wen’s fire. Which doesn’t really make sense if he’s a firebender, but that’s how it looked to me.”

Now that was useful, interesting information. Just how it fit into the puzzle of this mystery, Zuko wasn’t sure yet, but somehow it would. That didn’t mean he was going to let this dick off the hook. 

“Can you think of any motivation behind these attacks?”

“I don’t know for sure.” Once more, Watchman Kong surveyed the room. This time, he did not wait for Uncle to save him. He lowered his voice and spoke as he bowed. “But I’d say the attacks aren’t as random as the captain says they are.”

Huh, maybe he wasn’t complete scum. 

Zuko thanked him and turned on his heel. There wasn’t anything else he could learn from the city guard. Honestly, this was probably the last useful conversation he was going to have as himself. He could trust Jae and Kavi’s investigations to find the vigilante…

But, well, what better way to find a masked figure of the night than to join them?

“And just where do you think you’re going?” Uncle's sharp voice made Zuko freeze in front of his door. 

“I was thinking of retiring early tonight. It was a long day, and I’m hoping to get out early tomorrow.”

Uncle’s disappointed frown could make hardened criminals quake in their boots. “Have you forgotten about our hosts’ dinner invitation?”

Right. Their gracious hosts. Yu Dao, while not far from a port, was surrounded by mountainous terrain which made travel troublesome. A stay in the city was expected, but Uncle insisted that they had to make a formal introduction to Yu Dao’s mayor before finding lodging. As they would need to be working with the local law enforcement and government, it would be rude not to state their intentions. 

Not only did the mayor have no problem with them inquiring after the masked vigilante, but he and his wife all but forced Uncle and Zuko to accept their hospitality while in town. While it made sneaking out without Uncle’s knowledge to find the masked vigilante easier, Zuko did not want to have to make small talk with some mayor. Ugh. What a pain in the ass.

“Right, I guess I forgot,” Zuko grumbled. “I’ll at least freshen up and change for dinner.”

Uncle didn’t call Zuko out on his obvious lie, but his disappointed frown remained in full force as Zuko ducked into his room. It seemed it wasn’t going to go away for the entire evening. 

Yu Dao’s mayor, Shigeo Morishita, was a bold man who knew exactly what he wanted in exchange for his hospitality. As soon as Zuko and Uncle sat at the dining table, Shigeo bombarded them with questions about Zuko’s banishment. Sure, maybe Zuko could be a little more tactful in not answering him, but Uncle had no reason to keep giving him that disappointed look. Mayor Shigeo was being rude first!

Since Zuko learned about the Wings and started working with them, he also learned how little people knew about his banishment. He’d assumed it was fairly common knowledge, especially because Commander Genkei and fucking Zhao had known the details. But, no, apparently it was a hot topic of contention! 

The Fire Nation, and thus the world at large, didn’t know for a fact that Prince Zuko was searching for the Avatar to end his banishment. Which was why no one had made a connection between himself and Hui the scholar yet. Zuko had every intention of keeping Hui active. He had a lot of useful and important contacts as Hui! So Prince Zuko couldn’t go around a well-established Fire Nation colony furiously hunting down the Avatar. Which also meant Zuko couldn’t be giving this mayor the hottest gossip of the decade. 

Which was something Uncle was well aware of, since he brought up the topic independently of Jae and Kavi. Even without knowing everything going on with the Wings, Uncle agreed it was better for people not to know the details of Zuko’s banishment to better protect his cover as Hui. So Uncle was completely unjustified giving Zuko those dirty looks. If Zuko was bungling keeping secrets so bad, maybe Uncle should step in and help!

An awkward silence settled over the table after Zuko dodged yet another inquiry from Mayor Shigeo. The man’s daughter wouldn’t stop glaring at him, which was almost as bad as Uncle’s frowns and sighs. What was her problem?

“So Prince Zuko, what’s the most interesting place you’ve been in your travels?” The mayor’s wife, Loi, had a little more tact than her husband, and Zuko actually considered her question. 

“That’s a hard question to answer, ma’am. Everywhere I’ve been has been quite different from each other.” Zuko took the excuse of eating to ponder what was the safest to disclose. Hui was too closely tied to almost everywhere he’d been… “Probably the North Pole. Even if it was fu- really freezing.”

“Whatever did you go to the North Pole for?” Mayor Shigeo asked. 

Uncle shot Zuko yet another frown before he spoke with a conspiratorial grin to the mayor, “Now, do understand we were there undercover. This tale really shouldn’t leave this table.”

Really? Now Uncle decided to back Zuko up? The North Pole seemed like the safest bet to talk about, considering the only ones who knew about Hui’s intention to go there were folks of the Foggy Swamp, Uncle’s contact in Omashu… and the nomadic musicians who managed to spread Zuko’s Yangchen song across the entire damn world. Oops.

“Undercover?” Kori, the mayor’s daughter, spoke up for the first time. “So did you meet any waterbenders?”

“Yeah, but he was a bit of a dick-” Zuko coughed to cover his cursing as Uncle kicked him under the table. 

“It’s not well known, but I actually trained with a waterbender of the North Pole during my spirit quest after my son’s passing,” Uncle smoothly took over the conversation from there.

The rest of the dinner, Zuko offered a few noncommittal answers here and there, but was mostly ignored. Kori kept giving him strange looks across the table, but she didn’t try to approach him once dinner ended. Which was good, because it was already well into the evening and Zuko had a lot of ground to cover in hopes of finding the vigilante.

It all started several months ago. Kori was out with her friends and they stopped to listen to a busker perform. He wove a beautiful tale about a group that shouldn’t have worked, but were impossibly strong together . 

Avatar Yangchen and her masters were barely a footnote in Kori’s history education. They had lived so long ago, and her instructors were much more concerned if their students could accurately recite the monumental battles of this ongoing war. So the song was entrapping in its newness.

Despite the chorus focusing on Akari’s fire and Yangchen’s air, there were plenty of verses to introduce and celebrate Siniq’s strength and wit, Huizhong’s earth, and Tarkik’s water. Kori’s friend group didn’t have air or water benders in their midst, but the relationships depicted in the song struck a chord with them. 

People outside of Yu Dao acted like earthbenders, not the Earth Kingdom, were the enemy. The people of Yu Dao knew better. They brought fire and earth together and flourished for it! To hear a song celebrating a good relationship between fire and earth was amazing, even if it was accompanied by the rest of the elements. That was uncomfortable to think about. Regardless, the positive relationship of Yu Dao’s elements was refreshing. If only the rest of the world could be like Yu Dao.

At least, that was what Kori thought until a series of events opened her eyes to the reality of her city. A decree came from the capital banning the Yangchen song, which was easier said than done because it was incredibly catchy. Kori’s father had no choice but to enforce the decree, of course. But then some city guards roughed up Kori’s friend for merely humming the song!

When Kori brought the misconduct to her father’s attention, he promised he would look into it. Nothing came of his ‘investigation.’ Meanwhile, Kori started learning how common it was for the city guard to abuse their power over the poorer citizens of Yu Dao, particularly poor earthbenders . It was upsetting, to say the least, to realize her city wasn’t so perfect after all. 

Kori’s friends assured her that they didn’t expect her to do anything. She may be the mayor’s daughter, but she didn’t have any real power herself. But that didn’t sit well with Kori. She doubted Huizhong would have sat back and let injustice reign if it was happening right in front of her. Kori wasn’t a court noble, nor was she a princess, a brave warrior, or the Avatar. But this was still her city. Maybe she didn’t need to be someone grand to make a difference. Just someone strong. Kori had inherited her mother’s earthbending; she was a force to be reckoned with.

And so a plan started to form. 

If official channels wouldn't hold the city guard accountable for their behavior, then someone would have to knock sense into them. However, an earthbender couldn’t be attacking the city guard. That would only exacerbate the problem. If a mysterious firebender started making the guards face consequences for the actions however…

Kori had grown up with an extended family of fire and earth benders. She knew as much about fire as she did her own element. And she also knew that she could bend earth while it burned. 

The guards harassing a group of young earthbenders playing with their element had no idea what was coming for them. Burning coal behaved like earth, not fire, and the military trained guards couldn’t adapt to Kori’s attacks. They retreated, tails tucked between their legs. 

The children had made a smart escape the moment Kori drew the guards’ attention, but they had not run away. They popped out of their hiding spots and crowded around Kori with wide, shining eyes. 

“That was so cool!”

“No firebender ever defended us like that before!”

“Who are you?”

The problem was, Kori had started forming her plan. She hadn’t quite finished before she decided to patrol the city for the first time. Engaging with the guards hadn’t been part of the plan, but she couldn’t have turned her back on the kids. So Kori smiled under her mask, and held a single finger up to the painted mouth, asking for their silence. 

After that, it just seemed smart to keep her masked persona as a silent savior. No one could hear her voice and question her identity. She couldn’t accidentally say the wrong thing. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop her from accidentally doing the wrong thing. 

Patrolling in the rain was not a smart idea, but it hadn’t let up for days! The city guard wasn't going to stop because of the rain, so neither could Yu Dao’s protector. Kori braved the rain, armed with her flint and bag of coal, both whole and powder. As long as she remained under cover, her pretend firebending would be fine. 

Of course she had to come across a group beating up a homeless man in the middle of a street. The first guard had been easy to take out. The other three had Kori struggling to find cover so her coal didn’t go out, but she wasn’t going to give up. Just as it looked like she was about to get the upper hand, the homeless man made his escape and shoved into Kori. The unit’s earthbender caught her off guard and sent her flying into a puddle. Kori didn’t need to check her bag to know all of her coal was now soaked.

A fireball rocketed toward her and Kori had a split second to act. She couldn’t reveal herself as an earthbender. The whole purpose of this act was to improve life for Yu Dao’s earthbenders. It meant something for a firebender to be defending them. The puddle that ruined Kori’s coal was gritty and obscured her hands. It was full of earth. 

Water rose with the dirt of the puddle, same as fire traveled with her coal. A small wave met the fireball headed for her and extinguished it with a sizzle. There was no time to be shocked or to consider the repercussions of her improvisation. For the first time since she started this vigilante business, Kori had to accept defeat and retreated. At least the homeless man had been able to get away first…

How was she supposed to know rumors would start of her being the Avatar?!

“Kori! Kori! You’ve heard about that masked firebender, right?” One of her friends gleefully shouted at her in place of a greeting several days after the incident. “Well, apparently they bent water the other night! Of course the guards are trying to cover it up, but my cousin’s friend’s uncle is a record keeper at the station and he read the report and told her, who told my cousin, who told me! And other people of course, it’s huge. Do you think they’re the Avatar? They have to be! They bent water and fire!”

There were two options Kori could take. Either let the rumor die down and be forgotten, or lean into it. Of course she leaned into it! No matter what their education tried to tell them about the Avatar, it was obvious they were a symbol of unity and peace. If Avatar Yangchen could bring Akari and Huizhong together, then why shouldn’t Kori bring the earth and fire benders of Yu Dao together in her name?

Again, how was she supposed to know that would lead to the banished prince showing up on her doorstep?!

“Thank you so much for granting us an audience,” the Dragon of the West said with a cheery smile. “You have a lovely house!”

Sulking behind General Iroh was the banished prince, Prince Zuko. He looked nothing like how Kori had been imagining him from the vague rumors. For someone who supposedly tried to steal the throne at thirteen, he didn’t even reach Father’s shoulder and his glare was more a childish pout than an evil sneer. At the same time, he certainly didn’t look like a weakling unfit for the throne until he proved his strength, as went the other popular speculation about his banishment. 

None of the rumors really said much about his scar. It flared out from his left eye to his ear. How did he get such an injury? No Agni Kai would result in such a controlled burn pattern, right?

“I’m here to investigate the attacks the city guard have undergone,” Prince Zuko said defiantly, as if expecting Kori’s father to send him out of the city. “I’ve heard the attacker bent fire and water?”

Banished or not, the kid was still a prince , as was General Iroh, disgraced or not. Father was a good politician. There was no way he was going to pass up this opportunity. How was that not obvious to Prince Zuko? But, even more pressingly, why was he looking for Kori ?

“That is the rumor, and that the assailant is the Avatar!” Father laughed. “I assure you, Prince Zuko, the situation is under control. And I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for the supposed waterbending. But you’re welcome to question the city guard as much as you like. Yu Dao is at your disposal.”

Rather than express gratitude, Prince Zuko shrugged and fell silent. General Iroh was quick to continue the conversation, and eventually accepted Father’s invitation to stay in their home. All the while, Prince Zuko was a rude, uncooperative brat. 

Kori’s impression of him didn’t improve the following day, when he blatantly refused to answer Father’s questions. How in the world was he a prince and so bad at politics? Honestly, Kori knew her father was toeing the line with his incessant probing for information, but she also knew there were better ways to shut him down than grunting and flat out ignoring him. And worst of all, Kori still had no idea why Prince Zuko was investigating her masked persona.

Until she discovered his intentions, the smart thing to do would be to lie low. But if Kori’s past experiences were any indication, she wasn’t the best at doing the smart thing. Besides, it wasn’t like prince grumpy pants was going to get his hands dirty, combing through the city in the middle of the night in search of her. 

So as soon as the house quieted for the night, Kori donned her black clothes and frowning mask, and disappeared into the night. Yu Dao was counting on her. Her actions were already making a difference. People were scrutinizing the city guard more than before; the overlooked citizens of the city felt like they had someone looking out for them; her peers were inspired by the solidarity.

“Excuse me?”

Kori whipped around, lighting a handful of coal in the process. She was sitting on a rooftop, overlooking the city as she mulled over her thoughts, there was absolutely no good reason for someone to be speaking with her. Someone else wearing a mask stood several feet from her. It wasn’t Kori’s best moment, but she panicked. 

The burning coal shot toward the stranger, who yelped and swirled his arms in an unfamiliar movement. He didn’t summon flames of his own, nor did he extinguish the fire on the coal. It hit him and he took a step back in surprise, but the piece of coal didn’t burst into sparks. Instead, it dropped down onto the rooftop, its fire left behind on the stranger’s shirt but somehow not burning it. 

“I knew it!” A joyous shout came out from behind the eerily grinning mask. “You’re an earthbender!”

None of this made sense, so Kori did the best thing she could think of. 

She ran. 

“Hey wait!” 

Zuko scrambled after the vigilante, cursing his stupid mouth. Of course they would run after he exposed their big secret! Hadn’t Jae and Kavi explained to him the tenuous balance between earthbenders and firebenders in Yu Dao? The only reason the vigilante’s activities weren’t a bigger scandal was because they were thought to be a firebender.

“I just want to talk!” Zuko shouted, but the vigilante had already disappeared from view. Dammit, he didn’t know the layout of the city enough to successfully chase after them. 

It was fine. He hadn’t expected to find the vigilante so quickly to begin with. It was a stroke of pure luck he stumbled upon them, and his own idiocy had squandered the opportunity. Back to plan A: patrol Yu Dao and interfere with unethical guards until he ran into the vigilante or they sought him out. 

Easier said than done, as it turned out. Clearly the vigilante’s attacks were working , because the city guard was on their best behavior the following nights. Instead, there was a ridiculous amount of petty crime that Zuko kept stumbling upon. In the four nights since he started patrolling, Zuko broke up ten brawls, stopped five pickpockets, and took five robbers’ ill-gotten goods back to their original owners. 

“Oh, that’s not a good sign,” Jae mumbled, pulling her glasses off to clean them. “They’re not on their best behavior, Zuko. Just the opposite really.” 

The mayor’s garden was fairly secluded, and was the best place to catch up with Jae and Kavi’s side of investigations. Uncle didn’t exactly know they were also in town. 

“What do you mean? I haven’t seen them doing anything bad!”

Kavi grinned wryly. “Have you seen them doing anything ?”

Honestly, Zuko was getting really fed up with how these two acted together. They just loved talking around something instead of just telling Zuko outright. Obviously they understood what the guard’s recent behavior meant, why did they insist on making it a puzzle?

“I don’t know! I’ve seen them around, though. What does the city guard do?”

“Well, usually, they’re supposed to be dealing with everything you’ve done the past few nights.” Kavi’s scars didn’t quite allow him to raise a single eyebrow, but he managed to convey the expression well enough. “Now, why do you think they might not do that?”

A frustrated growl worked its way up from Zuko’s chest, but cut short before he gave it voice. 

“Wait, wait I think I get it. You said the common folk are celebrating the vigilante for beating up the guards who harass them. So… If the guards stop doing anything , even the things they should be doing to protect the public, then the common folk are going to turn against the vigilante! That’s not fair!”

“Exactly.” Kavi’s proud smile wiped away any remnants of Zuko’s frustration. “But, that’s not going to work as they intended if the vigilante is also picking up their slack like you have been. From what we’ve learned about their past activity, I’m sure they are. So the guards are only making themselves look even worse.”

“So why’s that a bad thing? Eventually they’ll be bad enough that the mayor can’t keep ignoring it.”

Jae shrugged as she put her glasses back on. “Well, there’s lots of ways this could end poorly for your innovative earthbender. They could wear themself thin trying to single-handedly stop all crimes in Yu Dao. The guards could easily set up a trap with a fake crime to catch them. The mayor could call in reinforcements to hunt them down. The citizens could still turn against them despite their best efforts.”

“So what can I do then?”

“Not much more than what you’re already doing, really,” Jae said with a sympathetic sigh. “Maybe we can try and get some Wings here to help the situation, but it’ll take a while…”

Kavi bumped his shoulder against Zuko’s, a hint of teeth in his smile. “Or, you could put the mayor on the spot at dinner. You’ve already been a tactless brat, what’s one more thing at this point?”

“Don’t encourage that!” Jae admonished, smacking his arm. “Zuko should not be making any more enemies than he already has!”

She was absolutely right. Pissing off Commander Genkei and getting Zhao on his ass was the worst thing Zuko had done to himself. He absolutely should not be antagonizing the mayor of the Fire Nation’s oldest and most profitable colony. 

“So Mayor Shigeo, do you know why the city guard believes the correct response to this masked bender is to completely stop doing their jobs?”

Kori inhaled her tea and broke decorum to furiously cough it up. The rest of the table barely fared better than she did, to be fair. Her mother was frozen, her chopsticks having clattered to the table from her grasp. Her father had turned an interesting shade of red. And the Dragon of the West had his head in both of his hands. 

Prince Zuko stared at Father, awaiting an answer and unfazed by their reactions.

Nothing about the prince in the past week made Kori question her initial impression of him. Nothing until now, that was. That question was exactly what she’d been trying to get her father to acknowledge! She didn’t even care what the prince’s intentions were in asking, she could kiss him for this!

“Excuse me, Prince Zuko, but I believe there must be some sort of misunderstanding,” Father said, the exact same excuse he tried to make to Kori. She loved her father, she really did, but he was much more concerned with retaining his power than controlling the city guard. 

Before Father could continue brushing aside the accusation, Prince Zuko scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Really? Then could you please explain to me why I witnessed a group of guards ignore an obvious mugging, only for this supposed masked criminal to do their job for them and help the victim?”

“You witnessed what ,” General Iroh hissed. “When?”

That Kori very much would like to know as well! She never went out on patrol during the day. What in the world was Prince Zuko talking-

“I couldn’t sleep last night so I went for a walk,” Prince Zuko said with a shrug. 

Last night, Kori had stopped a mugging in clear view of the guards. But surely she would have noticed if the prince had been there! He wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. 

“You did what ?” Even more shocking than Prince Zuko’s original question was General Iroh’s raised voice. He stood, hands placed firmly on the table as he stared down the prince. “When there’s an unknown assailant running about? I know your search for this bender has been slow, Prince Zuko, but I didn’t think I would have to expressly forbid you from personally seeking them out!”

“I just happened upon the situation! I didn’t know they’d be there. And I certainly wasn’t expecting the guards to ignore a crime!” Prince Zuko abruptly turned away from General Iroh to address Kori’s father. “I got their names, by the way, Mayor Shigeo. Perhaps you’d like to clear up this misunderstanding before I do.”

Kori had never seen her father outmaneuvered in such a way before. Politics were a subtle game, where forcing your hand never ended well for you. But somehow Prince Zuko managed to crudely march her father into a corner. Either he had to address the city guard’s behavior, or he lost face when a prince did it first. Banished or not, this strange kid was still a prince . 

“Please pass them on to me,” Father said, signaling for a servant to pour him a glass of wine, which he immediately downed. “I’ll visit the captains tomorrow.”

Prince Zuko sat back in his chair smugly. Even after dinner finished in an awkward silence, and General Iroh hauled Prince Zuko out of the room, a lecture obviously oncoming, his smug smile never waned. 

What was Prince Zuko’s game?

“Thank you Mister Spirit!” 

Zuko patted the little girl’s head and pushed her toward her door, not sure what else to do. It felt hypocritical to scold her for being out too late by herself, considering Zuko just got in trouble for that and was currently doing it. What Uncle didn’t know couldn’t upset him. 

The girl giggled and wrapped her arms around his legs in a hug tight enough that Zuko almost lost his balance. At least she let go quickly enough that he saved them both the embarrassment of him falling over. Then with a cheery wave, she ducked inside her house. She was lucky that it was Zuko who had stumbled upon her in a creepy alleyway instead of some murderer or something- 

A flash of red ducked around the corner of the building. Zuko chased after it, and caught sight of someone scaling a wall onto the rooftops. They looked over their shoulder, and a frowning red mask stared at Zuko in place of a face. Once on the roof, they waved at Zuko to join them. Finally! It had taken them long enough to seek Zuko out. 

Zuko scrambled up, already talking before his feet touched the roof tiles. “Sorry I startled you. But did it have to take you a whole week to finally talk to me? Surely you’ve noticed how I’ve been helping out, right?”

The masked vigilante stepped back and tilted their head in an exaggerated question. 

“Oh, shit, wait-” Zuko started signing, heat filling his cheeks. If the vigilante was hard of hearing, no wonder they attacked Zuko that first time! He snuck up on them out of nowhere! “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you that first night. I know sign language, if that’s why you were hesitant to talk to me!”

“What are you doing?” the masked vigilante asked. 

Who knew Zuko’s cheeks could grow even hotter. “What- It’s sign language! You weren’t talking!”

“You hardly gave me a chance to,” they said dryly. “You know, you’re quite intimidating until you open your mouth. You’re right, I have noticed you, and I haven’t been able to figure you out. So follow me to where we can talk.”

Without further warning, the vigilante took off in a sprint to jump to the next roof. Zuko made sure his swords were secure, then ran after them. He wished he had his glider, but using it would cause problems if he were seen. The vigilante led him across the city to the deserted warehouse district. They stomped the rocky rooftop and a crude chair rose up for them to drop into. 

“Okay, now talk. What sort of bending was that you did? Why did you suspect I was an earthbender? Why do you care ?”

Zuko wanted to complain about their rudeness in not making him a chair too, but bit it back. He sat on the roof with a huff, crossing his legs to prop his elbow on his knee and rest his head in his hand. How did he want to approach this? Surely word had spread to the vigilante that the prince was looking for them, so he shouldn’t give them reason to suspect him. 

“Have you ever heard stories about magma dragons?”

“ What ?” Their mask obscured their expression, but the vigilante’s tone more than expressed their incredulousness. 

“Yeah, magma dragons! My friend comes from an island where they have stories about dragons that lived in the volcanoes and bent the magma. They protected the people from violent eruptions, but also helped them change the island to better suit them by bending lava. But, you know it’s not fire that comes out of volcanoes, right?”

“It’s molten rock,” the vigilante said softly. 

“Exactly! The magma dragons were fire and earth benders. In the legends, they taught people how to firebend, just like dragons in firebending origin stories. They also taught people how to earthbend. But not fire and earth bending how we know it. They taught them magma bending. An inbetween of both elements.”

It was too bad that Chanda’s island only remembered the basics of the magma dragons as a legend, not as a lost history like the Si Wong remembered the jerboa or the Northern Water Tribe remembered the puffinfoxes and narwolves. But considering how thorough the Rampant Hunter had been in hunting down dual-element creatures, maybe it was more impressive that Chanda’s island remembered the magma dragons at all…

“But I’ve never bent magma ,” the vigilante said. “I bent burning coal! It’s not the same thing. Why in the world would you suspect I was an earthbender?”

“Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best thing to start with. I have another friend who’s a firebender, but all her siblings are earthbenders. So she learned how to treat fire like rock. When I heard about you supposedly waterbending, I figured it made more sense for you to be an earthbender treating rock like fire, and then mud like water. You know, for a city built off two elements, I’m surprised no one else has pieced that together.”

The vigilante sat in silence for a moment, then let out a soft laugh. “Well, probably because they haven’t heard about those magma dragons. I wouldn’t have thought to pretend to be a firebender by myself. But, have you heard that song about Avatar Yangchen? My friends-”

“It’s here too?!” Zuko exclaimed, unable to stop himself from interrupting. How could he not? Chong, Lily, and Moku did not seem like the type to travel efficiently. Even if other musicians at Omashu’s music festival had liked the song and learned it, its reach still seemed impossible. 

“Where else have you heard it?” The vigilante asked, suspicion filling their tone. Shoot, Zuko forgot he wasn’t supposed to let on that he wasn’t from Yu Dao. 

“Uh- I- Um, around, so how did the song give you the idea to try firebending with your earthbending?”

The vigilante’s frowning mask stared into Zuko’s grinning one, but they eventually shook their head and spoke. “Well, the song got me thinking. My friends don’t agree with me, but to me it sounds like the lyrics are implying they combined fire and air techniques. So it gave me the idea to try combining techniques with earth and fire.”

“No, you’re absolutely right!” Zuko wanted to jump up and pace off his building excitement. For all that the song had spread, and it seemed to be working in getting people thinking about balance and respect of elements, the message of Akari and Yangchen combining fire and air was written off as metaphorical! Even if Akari hadn’t discovered heatbending, her gentle flame was philosophically an airbending technique. “Oh, that’s so cool you picked up on that! And that it inspired you to try it yourself with your elements! Wait, is it the song that made you start this vigilante thing?”

“No!” The vigilante shouted in protest, much too quickly. They leaned back in their earthen chair with a groan. “Fine, a little bit. I just figured, Huizhong wouldn’t have let a bunch of corrupt guards harass people in Ba Sing Se if she knew about it. She was the most political in the song, but also used her strength to make a difference. So, I thought, I could use my strength too.”

Zuko couldn’t help himself. Everyone on the Sazanami already knew a lot about Yangchen and her companions. There was only so much he could risk writing Mai, no matter how secure the Wings’ made his correspondence. This was his first chance to hear what a regular person’s impression of the song was, and how it challenged their views. Thankfully, the vigilante seemed just as interested in talking about Yangchen. They were impressed by Zuko’s knowledge, and kept asking him questions to clarify parts of the song. 

“How do you know so much?” The vigilante eventually demanded. “You might as well have written the song!”

They didn’t know who Zuko was under the mask. Surely it’d be safe to admit, “Well, actually, I’m the one who told the original musicians about Yangchen’s story. They’re the ones who chose to turn it into a song, though.”

“You’re not from Yu Dao, are you? Why are you here, trying to talk to me and helping us?”

Technically, Zuko could have left as soon as he confirmed the vigilante wasn’t the Avatar. But merely finding the Avatar wasn’t his goal anymore. Sure, Yu Dao wasn’t a place for airbenders, but it was the perfect place to encourage a blend of elements. People like the vigilante were important to changing the world’s prejudices. 

“I wanted to meet you, I suppose. What you’re doing, mixing fire and earth like you are, it’s something important to me. The magma dragons aren’t the only legends of creatures that could bend more than one element. But they’re gone and forgotten now because the world was turned against the idea of blurring the lines between the four elements…”

Admitting that he wanted to bring some of those creatures back felt silly, especially to some masked vigilante he only started talking to. Shrugging awkwardly, Zuko adjusted his mask as he stood. 

“So thanks for talking with me. It’s nice meeting someone who would have accepted creatures like the magma dragons. Be more careful with your element mixing, though. If you keep pretending to be the Avatar, someone other than me is going to come investigate. And they won’t be understanding of mixed bending styles and-”

“Other than you ?” The vigilante interrupted, also standing. They gasped and pointed at Zuko. “I knew your voice sounded familiar! You’re the prince !”

“What- No I’m not!” Zuko protested, a chill of horror and regret running down his spine. Stupid! He was so stupid! Why would he say that? But wait a second- “My voice sounds familiar? Who are you?!”

He lunged for the vigilante, intent on ripping their mask off. They dodged, and bent earth around Zuko’s ankles to trip him. It’d been some time since Zuko sparred with Toph, but he remembered that dirty trick. Unlike his spars with Toph, he wasn’t limited to his swords. With a blast of fire, Zuko freed his ankles and tackled the vigilante, who hadn’t expected him to break out so quickly. 

They fell to the ground in a mess of limbs. The vigilante gave up trying to run away, and instead tried just as hard to get his mask off as Zuko was trying to get their mask off. Bruised and out of breath, Zuko allowed the vigilante to use their height to pin him down, but got a firm grip on the bottom of their mask. He ripped it off before they could retreat. 

Kori Morishita scowled down at him. 

“You’re the mayor’s daughter?!” 

She took advantage of his shock to take off his mask, but it's not like she hadn’t already figured him out thanks to his slip up. 

“Says the Fire Lord’s banished son,” Kori spat as she pulled away from him, her tone more confused than disdainful. Zuko chose to ignore it. 

“Why are you running around as a vigilante?” Zuko asked as he sat up, rubbing his sore nose. It got bashed pretty hard against his mask in their scuffle. “Can’t you just tell your dad about what’s going on?”

Kori scowled and crossed her arms. “Why are you running around making songs about Avatar Yangchen and preaching about harmony between the elements? Can’t you just tell your dad about what you’ve learned?”

“I’m banished. What’s your excuse?”

Zuko tried to ignore the lump in his throat, the twisting in his stomach. It didn’t matter that he was banished. He wouldn’t be able to simply talk with Father about these things-

“Do you think I haven’t tried to tell him? He doesn’t listen to me! I’ve been telling him about the guards doing nothing and it wasn’t until your little stunt that he actually did something about it!” Kori paused, then let out a laugh. “You weren’t on a walk! You were running around with that stupid mask. I thought I saw some blue, but wasn’t sure. I cannot believe you’re the prince. Spirits.”

They stared at each other in silence for a moment, then both burst into laughter. What a ridiculous situation. Zuko had been trying to find the masked vigilante, and had been staying under the same roof as her this entire time! It was impressive they never ran into each other coming or leaving the Morishita estate. 

“Okay, but, seriously,” Kori said once they calmed down. “ What are you doing? I promise I won’t tell my dad, but I do not understand you at all. You don’t fit with any of the rumors I’ve heard about your banishment.”

“It’s a long story…” Zuko glanced at the sky. There were still several hours until the sun rose, but he wasn’t sure how far they were from Kori’s home. “Also, we need to figure out how to stop the Avatar rumors around you. I’m serious, it’s dangerous.”

“How in the world do we stop a rumor?”

Zuko grinned as he stood. “Don’t know, but I have some people for you to meet who will.”

Maybe it was time for Kong to consider a career change. The pay and benefits of the city guard were not worth the constant blows to his conscience. Instead of just, oh you know, putting an end to the abuse of power in the guard, the captains told everyone to stop working completely. Not only were they punishing the public for a single person’s actions, but that person wasn’t in the wrong!

“Until we feel safe patrolling the streets again, we will be on strike,” a captain said proudly.

As if they wouldn’t be safe if they just did their job correctly. 

Shockingly, Mayor Morishita intervened not long into the ‘strike’ and said in no uncertain terms that the captains needed to call it off. He said what Kong was thinking the whole time: the attacker only struck when guards were acting against the welfare of the public. So as long as the city guard cleaned up their act, the attacker would leave them alone. 

That should have been the turning point. At that moment, Kong was so proud to count himself as part of the city guard. Yes, he would keep the peace and help the people of Yu Dao!

And now here he was, not even a week later, standing aside as his cohorts used a mouthy earthbender as a punching bag. How did they not learn their lesson? Why did they insist on taking their frustration out on the very people they were supposed to be protecting? Couldn’t they find a healthier outlet like sparring with coworkers or punching boulders in the mountain or anything else ?

Movement flickered at the edge of his vision. Kong turned and thought he saw a dark clothed limb disappear around a corner. The only reason Kong hadn’t been in more trouble last time he let the attacker get the jump on his unit was because he’d been hit first, and lied that he hadn’t seen them coming. This time, Kong looked around for the vigilante . He hoped eyes were on him as he gestured to the one-sided fight behind him. 

‘ Please stop them ,’ he hoped his body language said. ‘ I’m quitting after this .’

Fire came down from above, hitting a guard square in the chest. He fell to the ground, winded. The other, a firebender, quelled the flames on him and shot an answering blast of fire upward. Their victim ran away. Kong didn’t try to stop them. 

Another violent blast of fire shot down, and the firebender guard couldn’t dispel it fast enough. It knocked her down and she let out a pained cry. Good, she’d done worse to that kid and plenty of others. 

A wave of water suddenly crashed over them from the mouth of the alley way. Kong looked up and saw the same frowning red mask as last time looking down from the rooftop. He turned to where the water came from. A grinning blue mask was all he saw before something knocked him in the temple. 

Ah, the vigilante had a companion. That made more sense than them being the Avatar. 

‘ I wonder if they’re accepting applications ,’ was Kong’s last thought before the world went dark. 

Wind whipped around Zuko and he didn’t fight the laughter bubbling in his chest. Spirits, he was exhausted , but giddy adrenaline was more than enough to keep him steady as he glided back to the Sazanami. 

When he came to Yu Dao, he kept his expectations low. At best, he was going to find someone like Bun Ma, who was creative with their bending. Instead, he found Kori, who not only was creative, but was inspired by Yangchen . And she had been interested in, not disturbed by, the magma dragons. Of course he had to introduce her to Kavi and Jae. They wanted to get Wings in Yu Dao to help, so who better than someone already in Yu Dao. Besides, Kori was totally Wings material. 

With Kavi and Jae’s help, Zuko explained their goals and his story. Kori really liked the Yangchen song and wanted to learn as much as he would tell her. It took a few days to get her up to speed, but in the end, Kori was eager to call herself a Wing. Jae and Kavi were impressed by Kori’s dedication to the people of Yu Dao and had no problem inducting her. 

They also told Zuko that they trusted his judgment in accepting new members. Wasn’t that a scary amount of responsibility.

In the time it took for Zuko to explain his mixed element and airbending theories, and how they related to the Avatar, they all worked on Jae and Kavi’s plot to end the Avatar rumors Kori had started. The idea itself had been quick work, but it required Zuko to water heatbend.

He’d done it once on a whim to see if it was possible, that didn’t mean he could do it at will! But Kavi and Jae formed their plan around two benders who moved like Kori and Zuko struggled to adopt Kori’s burning coal style more than he did boiling water. So Zuko relentlessly practiced until he could control a sizable amount of water. 

While he did that, Kori helped them organize under the table transportation so that Zuko could publicly leave the city, but return by evening to execute the plan. They needed to dispel any possible suspicion toward Zuko’s presence in Yu Dao and the introduction of the second vigilante. 

Finally the day came. Zuko and Uncle thanked the Morishita family for their hospitality, then made the trek back to the Sazanami . The entire walk, Uncle kept wheedling Zuko, trying to figure out why he gave up on finding the vigilante. Zuko had a feeling that Uncle suspected Zuko met the vigilante behind his back, and wasn’t about to confirm those suspicions and earn himself another lecture. 

Then, once everyone on the Sazanami retired, Zuko and Jae snuck off board to collect the eelhound Kori arranged for them. Once they reached the higher peaks that overlooked the city, Zuko took to the air and glided the rest of the way while Jae went back to the ship. 

The plan went off without a hitch. Zuko feared the corrupt guards would still be watching themselves after Mayor Shigeo called them out. No, apparently that really shouldn’t have been a concern. Within an hour they found a group beating on a man in an alleyway. 

Kori took to the roof, while Zuko started heating the water in the barrel he’d been hauling around the damn city. Keeping watch was Watchman Kong of all people. He must have caught a glimpse of one of them, but he didn’t raise an alarm. He went so far as to invite them to interfere. Why he just didn’t stop his coworkers himself was beyond Zuko. But since he obviously didn’t approve of the other guards, Zuko tried not to be too rough while knocking him out. 

With two vigilantes spotted, Zuko’s work was done. Kori had a blue mask similar to his, and she would switch between them occasionally to keep up the illusion there were multiple vigilantes. Jae promised to get Wings in Yu Dao to support her as soon as possible, so hopefully she wouldn’t have to keep up the act for too long. 

Just as Jae had, Kori snuck out of the city with Zuko to ride an eelhound to the surrounding peaks. After exchanging their farewells, Zuko took to the air once more, and now here he was. Delighted to be gliding, proud from a job well done, excited to have met Kori, hopeful for the future. 

In just a few months, Zuko had done more than he thought possible to create a world that would accept his lóng. It was all thanks to Kavi and the Wings. Or, perhaps, all thanks to Lu Ten. Zuko wished his cousin—his big brother—was still with them to see everything Zuko was doing, to help Zuko change the world. 

Dawn was fast approaching as Zuko landed on the deck of the Sazanami . Ye-jun had the night shift today, and he’d promised weeks ago to keep quiet about any princes he may or may not see while on duty. Despite the safety net, Zuko made sure to stick to the shadows and returned to his room without running into anyone. He let out a sigh of relief, then a breathy laugh as he closed his bedroom door behind him. 

The plan worked perfectly, and with none the wiser-

A sharp clap in the dark room made Zuko jump and light a flame in his palm. His bedding was pulled off his bed, and was wrapped around someone seated on his floor. Someone whose hands were moving with purpose in the low light. 

Zuko shot his fire to the candles in his room and stared at Chanda, jaw hanging open in his utter confusion. 

“You know, I was going to let you share your secrets whenever you were ready,” she signed, pausing briefly to rub the sleep from her eyes. “But then I came by, concerned because you didn’t join us for dinner to tell us about what happened in Yu Dao, and you weren’t here. Interesting how Jae wasn’t on the ship either, when I went looking for you. I’ve suspected she’s part of your secret with Amphon and Kavi, but wasn’t sure until tonight.”

“My… secret?” Zuko asked like an idiot. His brain was still in the clouds and refused to give him any thoughts. 

Chanda rolled her eyes. “Something changed ever since you and Amphon went to the Air Temple. For example, you’ve been teaching everyone the sign for temple instead of stronghold when talking about it. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice that? I’m the fluent one here!”

To be fair, Zuko had started that in hopes Chanda would notice and would say something. Amphon kept telling him he should just come clean and tell her straight out about the truth of the war and the Wings, but it felt impossible. Zuko’s voice failed him, his hands froze whenever he tried to bring up the truth with someone who didn’t question it first. 

“You didn’t say anything,” he signed, yet again unable to do more than state the obvious. 

“Because I was waiting for you to say something!” Chanda threw her hands in the air and fell on her back with a groan. She kept her hands raised above her to continue signing. “So either you and Amphon are dating and have been keeping it a secret or you’ve uncovered that the Air Army is a lie. Which is it?”

“Dating?!” Zuko sputtered. Then he snapped his mouth shut and stomped across his room to sign over Chanda’s face. “Why would you think we’re dating?! That’s insane!”

“So the Air Army is a lie?”

A weight simultaneously lifted from Zuko’s shoulders and dropped in his gut. “Have you-” Zuko didn’t know a sign for overheard. Even if Chanda couldn’t hear, the idea behind it was still the same. “Did you see us talking about it or something?”

Chanda snorted and provided a sign for eavesdropping before answering him. “You’ve been talking to me about airbenders much longer than everyone else, Zuko. I can piece things together from what you’ve talked about before and what you’ve been sharing with everyone else. All this talk about their culture? The picnic ? It’s different from what you shared about Yangchen with me. You’re not talking about it because you think it’s cool, you’re trying to convince them of something. Only conclusion I can come to is that Yangchen’s people never changed, so the Air Army was a lie.”

All Zuko could do was nod. How had he completely missed Chanda putting all the pieces together? He should have been a better friend, should have just talked with her sooner! She must hate him for keeping secrets from her for no reason. 

“Stop looking like the world is ending. It’s a big secret. I get why you were hesitant to bring it up yourself.” Chanda sat up with a confident smile. “But now I’m telling you I have an idea. And I’m sick of being out of the loop. So tell me what’s going on.”

Zuko had just spent the past few days telling Kori the truth, but there was one thing he left out. It was exactly where he needed to start with Chanda. He turned to his chest where he hid the lóng egg upon returning to the ship. 

“Well, it all started the first time I went to the Western Air Temple…”