Chapter Text
Year 246 of the era of Kyoshi, Year 16 of the era of the unknown next Avatar, Fire Nation Palace, Caldera City
Zuko loved sneaking around the palace. There was something so freeing about it, about going unseen and unnoticed and seeing things he normally wouldn’t. He knew Fire Lord Sozin didn’t want him thinking about the military side of the Fire Nation, which generally was fine, but he got curious, and stealth would let him know more.
Sometimes he would listen in on meetings of ministers (boring) or meetings with nobles (even more boring). Every few months he’d sneak out of the palace to meet with Aang and Kuzon. So what if Father didn’t approve, knowing about the other nations was important, and Aang and his mentor always had stories about them.
Father said the other nations weren’t important, and the Fire Nation was better than them. Master Roku said the nations were all different and good in their own ways.
Zuko liked Master Roku better.
Azulon liked Father better.
Zuko knew his father had some disdain for the other nations, but he never believed it would become anything. So what if the Fire Nation was making technological leaps in weaponry? Of course it’d lead to civilian technology, and a peaceful spread across the other nations. So what if new ships were being manufactured, some even being made of iron now? There’d been a rise in piracy, and the Fire Nation needed to defend its trade and industries. So what if the military expanded after Avatar Kyoshi’s death? There wouldn’t be a fully realized Avatar for over 20 years to protect anyone.
At least, so Zuko thought, until he found himself clinging to the top of a pillar in the throne room, listening to his Father spell out a plan to wipe an entire people off the planet.
Why? Why? The Air Nomads are peaceful. They’re pacifists. Everyone knows that. Fath- the Fire Lord is talking like they’d send hurricanes to wipe out the whole Fire Nation.
Why are the generals agreeing with him? Why is nobody calling out this madness?
“If our plan to spread our greatness across the world will succeed, the first step is ensuring we cannot be destroyed for it. Agni’s twin is only a week away, and we will use it to strike first!”
This feels like a nightmare, there’s no way this could be happening. The last major war was over a hundred years ago, during the reign of Chin the Conqueror. Why would Sozin ever want this? Why? Why?
Zuko barely even hears the meeting draw to a close past the rushing in his ears. He’s so stupid. Sozin knew he sided with Master Roku’s view of the world. He kept Zuko away from any military knowledge for years, telling him that Azulon’s duties as prince were focused on the military. And he bought it.
He has to warn them. He has to stop this. He has to-
He’s dropped to the floor before he realizes he’s doing it. Dropped down in plain sight of his Father as he steps toward the entrance. He has to challenge this.
“Fire Lord Sozin!” he calls out, drawing familiar formality around himself to keep his mind from spiraling out of control. “You can’t possibly be thinking of doing this, and upsetting the balance!”
His father’s gaze burned into him, full of cold fury, as he stepped closer. “Prince Zuko. You are not allowed in here, and you are not to question your Lord.”
“You may be the Fire Lord, but this can’t be Agni’s will! The Air Nomads are pacifists! I won’t let you do this.” Zuko stands his ground with confidence he didn’t know he ever had. Strange yet familiar power thrums through his veins alongside his anger.
Sozin steps right in front of Zuko, towering over him despite their somewhat similar heights. “I wished I wouldn’t have to do this, but Roku and Kuro-” he spits out their names with venom. “-have corrupted you.”
Zuko stands frozen, staring at his father, as a hand comes up to cup the side of his face. This is not the father he knew.
“I hope you’ll understand, eventually.”
Flame comes to life.
Zuko burns.
Zuko burns, endless fire surrounding him. Fire of wrongness, fueled by Sozin’s anger, nothing like how fire should be. Fire that sears into flesh and scorches bone.
No, say a thousand voices, all of them his own but never heard by him before. A thousand lives of power burn in his veins, and stop the blinding pain. A thousand people stretch out into mist before him, eyes glowing with the power he feels.
He barely has time to think, but he knows some from scrolls, and some from.. somewhere. Avatar Kyoshi, and Kuruk, and Yangchen, and Szeto, and on and on.
Zuko stumbles back, nearly collapsing from sudden fatigue as the power leaves him. The throne room is in ruins around him, scorched to dust, cracked as if by an earthquake. The great pillars are reduced to broken stumps, the ceiling is gone, letting Agni shine down on him. The throne is melted into white hot gold. Sozin is nowhere to be seen.
Oh.
There’s only one explanation.
Run, say a thousand voices, and he does. A dull throb comes from the side of his face, where he was burned. Why can he still see, why doesn’t it hurt?
The power in his veins thrums in answer. He sees a flash of pulling glowing water out of the air in a firestorm.
Where can he go, he can’t run to the harbor, no ship would survive if Sozin wanted him dead now—he pushes aside how much that thought hurts. Uncle Kuro and Master Roku were both out of Caldera for the next two weeks, visiting someone in Byakko. Druk isn’t big enough to carry him anywhere yet, he’s only two years old. He only just learned to fly a few weeks ago alongside Appa-
Aang. He was visiting yesterday, and said he would stay until this evening, so Kuzon could come join them. Appa could get to an air temple.
Zuko bursts into his room, ignoring all the confused and scared servants in his wake. He grabs his dual dao from where they sit on the wall, a dark cloak he has for stealth, and a very surprised dragon. He doesn’t stop to let himself think about how everything is about to change, or how wrong his family had become, or how he’d miss them despite everything. He couldn’t.
Now with swords on his back, a cloak pulled around him, and a dragon curled over his shoulders (demanding to be told what’s going on, to panicked ‘after we escape’’s), he pulls himself out of the window and onto the roof. He knows the path to where Aang was likely keeping Appa by heart by now. Over the roof, jump across the gap, around the courtyard with the turtleduck pond—another pang of loss he pushes away—down the east wing of the palace. Zuko sends a quick prayer to Agni that Aang is still there.
He can see the plume of smoke rising from the ruins of the throne room, hear the panicked shouts of servants and nobles alike. Aang, don’t investigate, don’t move.
To his great relief, Appa is still sitting at the top of the ridge of the Caldera, like usual, and a familiar orange kid is leaning over the edge very precariously. There’s nobody else that could be.
As soon as Zuko drops to the ground near them, Druk jumps off him to stand on Appa’s head, which the bison responds to with his usual good natured groan.
“Zuko!” Aang calls out as soon as he spots him. “You’re okay! I was really worried, that looked bad down there I’m surprised you’re up here already what- What happened??” Aang asks the last question as Zuko lowers his hood. From how pale he turns, Zuko guesses that it’s a lot worse than it feels.
“No time,” he breathes, already climbing onto Appa. “We need to run. Now. ”
Aang takes one look at the panic on his face and jumps onto Appa’s head, calling out “yip yip!”
Zuko takes a few deep breaths as Caldera shrinks away below them, letting the reality of the situation sink in. Father burned him . And he plans to attack.. kill all the nomads.
Zuko’s the Avatar.
He lets out an incredulous laugh at the situation. It just doesn’t feel real. It can’t.. but of course it is. He can feel the truth of the situation in the memories of the power he knows he has, yet has never known before.
Aang sits down next to him on his right, with a concerned look on his face. “Zuko, what happened?”
“I..” Zuko takes a deep breath. “The Fire Lord wants to start a war. By destroying the air temples.”
“What!?” Aang nearly falls off of Appa from shock.
“I don’t know why,” Zuko says through gritted teeth. “But when I tried to stop him he.. he..” He can’t stop the stray tears that fall, flying off in the wind. “He tried to kill me.”
“But- but-” Aang looks fearfully between Zuko and the city behind them. Zuko supposes it’s lucky none of the ships in the harbor tried to fire at them.
“We need to warn them, Aang. Do- do you have any paper?”
Aang nods silently, eyes still wide as he processes the nightmare this day’s become.
The next few hours are spent in quiet shock, writing out messages on the backs of airbending scrolls—the only paper they have. Zuko quietly explains with more detail, about how the Fire Nation’s been preparing for years, about how his father wants to take over the world. About how he’s the Avatar.
They land in a town on one of the islands near Caldera briefly to send the messages. Zuko throws down enough money for a dozen express messages to make sure they all get there—he’s glad Druk was trying to open a box with trinkets and money in it back when they left now, although it would have annoyed him before. One to each of the three temples him and Aang likely aren’t going to be able to reach, one to Byakko, to warn Master Roku and Uncle, one to Omashu and one to Ba Sing Se, to warn the earth kingdom (if they listen), and one to each of the water tribes. Neither of those are sent due to the cold being too much for hawks.
They fly as fast as Appa can go once the letters are sent, trying to reach the Western Air Temple as soon as possible, but..
“Zuko, that’s a pretty big storm.”
Hurricane is a more accurate word for it. The Fire Islands are hit by small storms often, and hurricanes once every few years, so of course it’s just their luck that it’s one of the big ones right in the way. Both of them know it’s extremely dangerous to fly through one.
“Do we..?” Zuko asks, quietly.
“If anyone can make it, it’s Appa. And if you’re the Avatar, the spirits definitely will let us get through it!”
Half an hour later, Zuko thinks, I’m never taking advice from Aang again.
Shortly followed by, Or anyone, I guess.
Appa tumbles below the waves, unable to fly in the storm’s winds. Zuko sees the storm darkened surface lift away, lit only by flashes of lightning, silent this deep underwater.
I guess this is it.
He lets go of the saddle.
No, say a thousand voices. This Avatar has a destiny, and cannot die at a storm’s whim when trying to save a people.
No, say a thousand lives. Their power flows through their newest incarnation once more, lighting up the depths of the ocean in brilliant light.
No, say a thousand Avatars, as they encase this one in ice.
Year 99 AG, South Pole
The blinding light of the iceberg breaking open slowly faded away, leaving Katara and Sokka huddled together, staring at the sight that comes into view as the mist clears.
Is this a spirit tale? Sokka wonders, because what else would explain this.
Sitting in the middle of what had been an iceberg. An iceberg! Sitting right there is a giant furry creature, unlike anything he’s ever seen. It has thick white fur like a polar bear-hound, arrow shaped stripes, and is that six legs?
And on top of it is a dragon. That, right there, is an actual, living dragon. It’s only about as long as Sokka’s spear, but there’s nothing else it could be.
A cough breaks both Katara and Sokka out of their confused staring and brings their attention to the other two things that were in the iceberg. One of thich immediately causes Sokka to raise his spear back up.
There’s a boy in yellow and orange clothes—the one who coughed—slowly blinking his way awake on the snow next to the.. big white thing. He’s completely bald and has bright blue arrow tattoos on his head and hands.
The other person is Fire Nation. He’s laying on the furry creature’s head, wearing deep red robes trimmed with gold, with a black cloak over the top, and isn’t even trying to hide where he’s from. He also has a massive burn over the side of his face, which is why Katara doesn’t quite prepare for a fight like Sokka.
“Ow,” says the fire nation boy—he looks around Sokka’s age. “Aang, remind me never to listen to your plans again. You got us crashed on- icebergs?” He looks around, blinking in confusion.
“Huh?” The other boy—Aang, apparently—almost seems to float to his feet, and he immediately notices Sokka and Katara. “Oh hi! Are you water tribe? Why are we near a water tribe?”
Sokka steps forward, leveling his spear at a boy who looks no more than 12. “You’re Fire Nation. What are you doing here?”
“Good question!” Aang looks entirely unbothered by the spear, as if he doesn’t know that it’s a weapon at all. He just looks up at the other boy, asking, “Zuko, do you think the storm could reach all the way to a pole? Oh! What pole are we at?”
Zuko rubs his head, eying the spear with a frown. “North, the sun’s in the sky right now. Can you not point that at us?”
“What? No!” Sokka paired his incredulous reaction with a step forward, at which point the dragon looked right at him and blew out a little puff of flame. Sokka did not squeak, or stumble back, that was just a very manly noise of surprise. “You’re Fire Nation!”
“This is the south pole,” Katara said, seemingly not distrustful of the literal Fire Nation people here.
“Katara,” he hisses, pulling her back behind him. “Fire Nation."
“Oh!” Aang looks thrilled at this being the south pole, even though he really should be freezing right now. Why hadn’t Sokka noticed that earlier? “I’ve always wanted to go to the south pole! I heard the penguins here are great for riding.”
“Aang,” Zuko snaps. “We have much more important things than penguins to do. Like figure out what happened, or if we can get to the air temple in time.”
Well there goes another mark on Sokka’s “list of reasons not to trust mysterious people in icebergs.” This one’s labeled “visiting remains of a genocide.”
Aang pales. “Monkeyfeathers. How long has it been? Why were we in an iceberg?”
Zuko gives him a look that seems to say really?
“Oh, right!”
Zuko looks back at Sokka and Katara with a frown. “What day is it?”
“We don’t really keep track of that here,” Katara responds.
“Katara!” Sokka snaps. “Why are you helping them?”
“They were in an iceberg, Sokka. I want to know what’s going on.”
“Fire. Nation.” Sokka waves his spear in Zuko’s general direction.
“Why don’t you trust the Fire Nation?” Aang asks, now standing in the big thing’s saddle and leaning over the side to search through a bag, as if Sokka’s threats don’t exist.
“Oh, I don’t know, the last century of war?”
Zuko chokes, turning as pale as the snow around them and nearly falling off of the big creature. Aang does fall off into the snow, only just catching himself with what looks like a burst of air. Why would an airbender be with Fire Nation?
“Century?” Zuko whispers, eyes—er, eye—wide. “It can’t have been a century.”
“Uh, yeah? Were you really..” Sokka looks at Zuko’s utter shock and lowers his spear somewhat. That looks hard to fake. And they were in an iceberg. Somehow. “I guess you were.”
“Did.. the air nomads survive?” Aang asks fearfully.
“Some did,” Katara responds quietly. “Most of them didn’t. There’s only a few groups of them now.”
Zuko whispers, “We failed,” and buries his face in his hands.
Aang takes a breath that’s only slightly shaking; he doesn’t seem to have truly realized what was said. “Well, we saved some.. right?”
“Maybe? People say someone in the Fire Nation sent messages to the temples before the attack. Was that you?” Katara asks. Sokka doesn’t stop her this time when she steps forward.
Aang just nods, wiping tears away from his eyes.
“We can take you back to our village while you figure out what to do, if you want,” Sokka’s idiot sister offers. That’s a bit too much.
“Katara,” he warns her. “They-”
“Clearly are from before the war, somehow,” Katara interjects. “They won’t hurt anyone. Right?” She asks Zuko.
Zuko wipes away his tears. “I swear, on my honor, no harm will come to you or anyone in your village from our presence.” His voice is rough, but strong underneath.
Katara gives Sokka a look.
“Fine,” he grumbles. “Now we just need to find a way off of the ice. ” He throws his arms out to gesture to, well, everything around them.
“Oh, Appa can fly us out!” Aang said, jumping 15 feet onto the big thing. Appa? Well, that definitely proves the airbender theory.
Wait.
“Fly!?” Sokka exclaims.
“Appa’s a sky bison,” Aang says, which actually makes sense now that Sokka thinks about it. He’s heard of them at least, in stories about the other nations. With a lot of quiet grumbling about how over trusting Katara is he climbs up into Appa’s saddle, right after Katara. Now he has to figure out how to explain this to the village.
This is gonna be a long ride, Sokka thinks with a sigh.