Chapter Text
To be cradled in such a cold cocoon, the young monk was left safe, yet vulnerable. The shell protected him, but also trapped him in this perpetual frozen nightmare. He couldn’t wake up. He didn’t want to wake up. Here he could remain in a stasis while the horrors of the world licked around him without his knowing. Ignorance, but maybe not bliss, was his prison and his stronghold.
In frozen stirring, he opened his eyes. It was the only part of his body he could move and through the thick sheet of ice, the monk could make out a figure across from him, melting the ice. He was vulnerable to this stranger’s every move, every bit of fire that melted away at the iceberg was just as capable as melting his own flesh and bone. Instead, the monk slowly gained more consciousness as the light freeing him moved closer. Watching. Waiting.
As soon as he could move a finger the slightest amount, the young monk’s eyes and tattoos started glowing with incredible intensity, and broke through the ice. The Avatar rose into the sky and turned to face his rescuer, a boy the same age as him wearing the Fire Lord’s headpiece, who was temporarily taken back in a mixture of shock and awe. But the temporary hesitation was quickly over; the Fire Lord launched a powerful blast of fire directly at the Avatar.
Right before the searing heat could reach him, the Avatar caught a distinct glimpse of the Fire Lord's striking gold eyes.
Aang awoke with a start in a Southern Water Tribe tent, gasping for air. A damp towel fell from his forehead onto his lap at his sudden movement, and Katara was rinsing her hands in a bucket nearby.
"Aang, are you okay?"
The events of the previous day came back to Aang after hearing the girl's voice. He had not, in fact, been nearly burned to death when he was rescued from the iceberg: Katara had found him. With all the disorientation, Aang felt himself filled with gratitude that a friendly face had found him the day prior.
"I think so, just a bad dream," Aang finally responded.
Aang met the rest of Katara's village and then managed to finally convince Katara to go penguin sledding, on the pretense that he would teach her how to waterbend. No, he didn't actually know how to waterbend, but he wasn't going to let that stop him from striking up this fantastic deal to go penguin sledding.
When the two ran into the old warship, Katara explained to Aang that they were forbidden to go in there, but Aang managed to convince her to explore anyway. His recklessness finally caught up to Aang when he accidentally set off a booby trap that sent a flare high into the sky. For his impulsive curiosity, Aang was rewarded with banishment from the Southern Water Tribe.
There it was again, that feeling of cold abandon when Aang was by himself again, wandering the snowy tundra. The idea that everyone he knew was gone because he was trapped in that horrible ice prison for over 100 years was unbearable. That everyone he knew was gone because he had abandoned his duty as the avatar for the fear of the responsibility. Right here out in the icy desert, Aang was back at square one, allowing his impulses to evoke destructive consequences. Was he really going to abandon the Water Tribe when an attack force was surely on their way now after seeing the flare he set off?
--
Aang made it back to the village just in time, it seemed. A Fire Nation soldier was threatening the Southern Water Tribe, and they didn't seem to have much to defend themselves with. He heard the firebender speak.
"I know you're hiding him somewhere! Where is the Avatar?"
That was his cue. With his glider, Aang swooped down and stood between the young firebender and the rest of the villagers.
"What, looking for me or something?" Aang teased the young soldier with a coy smile, but then they locked eyes, and his breath caught in his throat.
This was the Fire Lord from his dream, and - it was so much more obvious now - this firebender really was just a teenager. And unlike his dream, there was no fancy headpiece or ornate clothing, and this teenager had a burn scar covering one of his eyes. It was unmistakable that this was the same person, but the image standing before him was damaged, marked.
"You're the avatar!?" The firebender asked the question with a hefty weight that Aang didn't understand. "I have spent years learning about airbenders, studying their murals and deciphering airbending forms. I couldn't believe it before, but you really are just a teenager!"
"Funny, I was thinking the same thing!"
This boy from his dreams. There was an intrigue, certainly, but right now Aang knew there was more at stake to protect this village. Still, he was learning a lot about this firebender already, which wasn't that hard because he seemed to wear his heart on his sleeve. The boy was seeping with exaggerated pride.
Oh, firebenders.
"You're coming with me." the firebender insisted, sending a blast of fire towards Aang that he quickly dissipated.
If Aang remembered anything about firebenders, it was that if you knew the right buttons to push, fights with them were a breeze. Literally!
"Oooo so sudden! I don't even know your name and you're trying to ask me out?"
This instantly enraged his adversary, who threw more fire blasts at him. Aang merely circled and evaded these attacks, making little effort to retaliate.
"I want you on my ship in chains!"
"You want me? Well that changes things a little, but you still haven’t introduced yourself. I'm Aang!"
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" The firebender shouted to the surrounding soldiers, "HELP ME!"
This was a little more complicated. Aang was a master airbender, and therefore a master of evasion. Keeping himself away from the dangerous heat of fire was easy enough, but as more soldiers started to surround him, Aang started to feel nervous about the water tribe villagers who could get caught in the literal crossfire.
"Hey... you didn't tell me you had other people. I thought this was going to just be us, hotman!"
Aang didn't think it was possible for his adversary to get angrier, but those words seemed to hit the guy at the height of hurt pride, causing him to lose any sense of self-control he may have had before. Aang's eyes widened as a blast of fire made it a little too close to some of the villagers. Their screaming was enough for Aang's adrenaline to really start kicking in, who managed to dissipate the flame just in time.
"Okay, okay! If I go with you, do you promise to leave this village alone?"
The firebender signaled for his soldiers to stop fighting. He glared at Aang, trying to read him. "Yes," he finally said, "but any resistance, and you will regret it."
Aang allowed the Fire Nation soldiers to grab hold of him, and he heard Katara from behind.
“Aang! Don’t do this, please.”
“Don’t worry about me, Katara! I’ll let you know how the date goes later!”
The avatar was playing with fire.
His adversary, fuming, turned to send a kick of fire towards him and the villagers, but halfway through his kick, Aang had grabbed a hold of his ankle, firmly stopping the kick. For the first time, Aang glowered at the firebender with his own anger. “Lay a finger on her and the deal is off.”
A flicker of fear flashed across those gold eyes, and the firebender huffed, yanking his food away from Aang's grip.
"Lieutenant Jee? Use the shirshu venom to stun the avatar, and take him out of my sight!"
The next thing Aang knew, Lieutenant Jee stabbed him with a needle of venom, and Aang couldn't move a muscle. He watched his adversary trace his fingers down his staff, facing away from the avatar. Aang's limp body was dragged away as he was left vulnerable and to the whims of whatever the soldiers decided to do with him. Into the cell Aang was thrown, feeling a cold sickness overtake him, wishing the venom to wear off. In sickness, Aang fell into a shivering slumber.
--
When Aang awoke, he was tied more tightly to the wall in his cage, but across from him, the firebender - the dream boy - was writing something in a bound notebook. Stirring, Aang realized he could move again, not that it was super helpful considering his bound position, but at least he could use his mouth to airbend. He realized he would probably have to wait for a chance to escape though, with the fire nation boy across from him.
The boy looked up from his notebook, taking notice that Aang was awake, and they shared a moment of prolonged eye contact before he went back to scribbling whatever it was in his notebook.
He knew it was impolite to stare, but Aang’s gaze fell on the boy’s scar. Looking at it made his stomach squirm, wondering how painful it was to receive such an awful mark. With a clue towards his hair, Aang remembered that sometimes during Agni Kais, if the loser lost shamefully enough, they would sometimes shave their head in humiliation (although the topknot remained untouched). Aang had always thought to some extent that Agni Kais could be brutal, but he’d always thought there was some honor to them. Restraint. That’s what Kuzon told him anyway. If this boy’s hair and scar were connected, Aang didn’t want to know what kind of person would be so brutal.
"Hey," Aang's voice was a little dry from grogginess. "What are you writing in there?"
"I'm not," the boy responded with his eyes fixated on the pages.
"Huh?"
"I'm not writing."
Aang blinked and tried to sit up to get a better look at him. "What are you doing then?"
The boy ignored him. How rude. Aang was just trying to make pleasant conversation with his captor . The least he could do was engage. Aang took a deep breath in and used airbending to try and pry the notebook out of the boy's hands. Since he had been scribbling something on his lap and only using one hand to hold down the notebook against his knee, the boy's notebook flew out of his hands and into the prison bars with a clank. When it fell on the floor, Aang noticed that it was a drawing of himself.
"You're drawing me! Hey you're pretty decent, you're getting all the line work on my tattoos." Aang was drawn to the beauty and accuracy of which the boy had drawn the air symbol and the other line work for the arrow on his forehead.
"Don't do that!" The boy collected the notebook and held it close to himself. "Can't you just shut up and let me draw?"
The audacity of this guy. "No of course not! You're going to lock me in here and demand respect? If you've come here to gawk, at least show some dignity and talk to me."
"After you humiliated me in front of my crew? You have no right to speak of dignity!"
"Lighten up. I was just trying to get under your skin, and clearly it worked."
"That doesn't matter. You insinuated that I'm… that…" Aang stared at him with raised eyebrows. "You made it easy for my crew to disrespect me! Everyone already thinks I'm a little freak and you just gave them more fuel for the fire."
Ordinarily, Aang would have just assumed this hurt pride came from the firebender declaring Aang an enemy, and the idea of insinuating romance with his enemy was vile. But there was something more to his tone. A twinge of shame that was forgein to Aang.
"Okay, I'm sorry."
The two sat in silence for a while longer, before the firebender spoke again.
"I'm drawing your tattoos." Aang's gaze met his. "I've been hunting you for three years so that I can restore my honor and deliver you to my father. I have traveled to all four air temples trying to document every piece of information I could about who you are and your whereabouts. The Eastern Air Temple has a statue of Yangchen, and in the stone there are carvings of the line work in her tattoos. Yours are different."
Was this boy a scholar? In the air temples, the tattoos were so common that Aang often forgot how impressive they were to outsiders. The monks never asked about them, they saw so many. It was folks of other nations who would marvel at the intricacies, but no one had ever really asked him what the images embedded in the ink actually meant. Besides, it took a great attention to detail to notice it: many only saw the greater shape of the blue arrows.
Aang shuffled around to let his back face the boy. "You see those pies on the nape of my neck?"
He could hear the boy draw closer to him, ever cautiously.
It was on the back of his neck, but Aang still had the image of this line work burned into his memories. Three pies had a path of swirls representing air movements, leading to a set of three faces of monks being hit with the pies. It was silly, but Gyatso had managed to make the artistry of it graceful. "I haven't looked at it in ages, I need two mirrors to see it. But it's my favorite piece of line work in my tattoos. Monk Gyatso used to train my airbending aiming by launching pies at the elder monks from dozens of yards away. Gyatso wanted me to remember my unquestionable spirit. Our mentors give the master tattoos. It’s a ritual of connection, where our mentors depict the personal mastery we have over the element of air. So, every master’s tattoos follow the same blue arrow shape, but each is unique."
Aang’s hands were restricted with the chains holding them together behind his back (to restrain his ability to airbend, he figured), but he shifted a little more while his back was still turned to lift his tunic, exposing the tattoos beneath it.
“What are you doing!?” The firebender was scandalized.
“I just want to show you one more thing. Here.” Aang traced a section of his back just below his shoulder blades with his finger. The line work here depicted a wispy stick figure balancing on a ball of air. The air scooter. “To become a master, you have to either pass the thirty-six levels of airbending, or invent a new technique. I became the youngest master in history for inventing the air scooter.”
The Fire Nation boy scoffed, but Aang could hear him continue to scratch away at his piece of paper.
There was something scandalous about this vulnerability Aang was displaying. He was already being held captive, not as an equal, and yet here he was telling his adversary about his intimate spirituality. Aang didn’t understand it entirely. It wasn’t that he was uncomfortable with his shirt off, or rather part way off in this case, it was that he still wasn’t totally aware of the firebender’s intentions. Spirits, Aang still didn’t know his name . Maybe it was the way this boy reminded him of Kuzon, but there was something tugging at Aang the moment he saw him in that village, marked by a burn scar. In his dream, this boy was perfectly unmarked, and the Fire Lord. But when Aang saw him for the first time here, that image was instantly shattered and reforged with a kid from the Fire Nation who was lost at sea.
Aang remained with his tunic halfway up and facing the wall until he could no longer hear the gentle scraping of the charcoal against the paper. He shuffled back around to watch the boy gather his materials and start to leave.
Before he left, the firebender turned around. Aang could see he was gathering his courage to say something, so he remained silent, giving him all the time he needed.
"My name is Zuko."
And he was gone.
--
After a few hours had passed alone, Aang finally found his opportunity to escape. A soldier walked past his cell and Aang noticed the distinct jangle of keys. He used the same inhale technique that he used to pry the notebook from Zuko’s lap earlier, except this time with more precision and control to be as discreet as possible. Aang was going to need to find his staff and it was in his best interest to approach his escape with stealth. Getting the air to lift the keys upward and then pull them towards Aang took immense concentration, but the keys landed almost silently in his lap. He waited until after the guard left to start unlocking his wrists from the chains, and then set himself free out of this cage.
Each step landed lightly. Aang was using airbending to ensure he didn’t make a sound as he traversed through the labyrinth of the ship.
After a few doors, Aang slipped into a room to discover that it was covered head to toe in shelves of books and scrolls. Everything was honestly a mess, but there seemed to be some sort of order to the chaos. His fingers brushed over markings on a shelf labeled “Section 2B”. The books in section 2B, from what he could tell, formed a collection of Earth Kingdom texts. Labels were stuck on each spine with numbers ranging from “387 BG” to “7 AG” and Aang found himself mesmerized by this organization system that he didn’t understand.
This room also had a bed and a desk. Closer inspection of the desk informed Aang that this was probably Zuko’s bedchamber: the notebook from earlier was open to a page with a drawing of Yangchen. Aang gawked at the detail he depicted in her tattoos. He remembered seeing the statue of Yangchen at the Eastern Air Temple a long time ago, but to depict this much accuracy… did Zuko have to climb onto the statue to see this? Flipping through more of the notebook, Aang could see dozens of pages of notes about avatars, airbenders, shrines, and margin notes of questions Zuko was trying to answer. Aang pushed back the thought that this was invasive, after all, wasn’t it just as invasive to kidnap someone and threaten small villages?
Aang almost forgot he was trying to escape this ship.
Instead of poring through all the information right here and now, Aang shoved the notebook into his tunic and dug a little more through the room to try and find his staff. He figured it was a pretty good bet that it was here: Zuko seemed to have a large collection of relics in his room. Eventually, Aang found the staff underneath Zuko’s bed and slipped out of the room to resume his escape.
The rest was a bit of a blur. Aang had almost made it to freedom on his glider, but Zuko had grabbed onto Aang after he’d sent out his glider to start flying away, and they both toppled into the ocean. Just when Aang thought he was going to drown, the glowy sensation overtook him, just like when he had emerged from the iceberg.
Aang was separate from himself, almost as if he was watching his body conduct this from a distance. Zuko was being pulled back onto the ship by one of the soldiers, and Aang was, well, waterbending. Every fireball sent at him was met with more water, more ice, until Aang finally hit an ice wall which came tumbling onto the ship, and he blacked out.
When he woke up, Katara and Sokka hovered over him.
“Thank goodness you’re okay!” Katara wrapped her arms around Aang tightly. “When your eyes stopped glowing and you started to fall, I was so afraid we wouldn’t be able to catch you in time.”
“Yeah what was that weird glowy thing anyway? You’ve been passed out for like an hour!”
Aang sat up a little. “I’m not sure. It was like I was watching myself from a distance.”
He looked out of the saddle and lowered his hands into the drifting clouds right beneath them. “Thank you for rescuing me.”
“It’s no big deal. We had to know what happened on your date with your new flamehead boyfriend.”
Aang punched Sokka’s arm in response. “He’s not my boyfriend. I was just saying that to set him off.”
“I don’t know, it seemed like you were blushing back there,” Katara laughed.
“Was not!”
“Was too!” Sokka interjected.
"You did call him hotman."
"Yeah that's just what they call each other in the Fire Nation!"
"Are you sure it wasn't because you thought he was a hot man?" Katara was laughing to the point of tears.
"No I'm serious! It's part of their slang over there." Aang was catching on to the contagious laughter. "Come on, he wasn't even that hot."
"Aha!" Sokka pointed at him. "So you admit that he was a little hot!"
"No I didn't! You just said he was a little hot!"
"I didn't find him hot at all, I don't know what you two are on about."
"Okay, okay. He's not hot! Hotman is just what they call each other in the fire nation. It has nothing to do with how attractive or unattractive someone is!"
The three of them continued to bicker through shrieking laughter, and Aang knew he was safe here, above the clouds. There was a kind of tranquility and freedom here on Appa. Relief. No metal cage, no ice prison. Aang was surrounded by family, and whatever came next, he was going to face it with them.